His work Night in a Train dates from 1944 and like many of the artist’s works it conceals a certain negative and sceptical attitude towards life, which is even more intense here due to the difficult and oppressive conditions of the war years. The picture is dominated by two dark fi gures —— a seated man and a standing woman —— gazing into the night out of a train window: lonely and alienated beings in a train going from nowhere to nowhere. The sombreness of the scene and its atmosphere of distrust is heightened by the green, blue and wine red areas of colour simulating the wooden walls of the railway carriage and evoking cold and hopelessness. A striking element of the painting’s optical centre is the hand brake of the carriage. František Hudeček gradually moved in the direction of geometrical arrangement and abstraction. During the 1960s he devoted himself to op-art. Most of his works derive from his distinctive awareness of surfaces, space and colour relationships based on his knowledge of descriptive geometry, biology and physics. Most sought-after are his works from the period of Group 42.