(1932, Ostrava – 1988, Drábsko) Painter, graphic artist, illustrator, typographer. From 1958 to 1964 he studied at the Bratislava Academy of Fine Arts under Peter Matejka and Vincent Hložník. His early works reflect the influence of cubism, but in the 1960s he began to embrace the contemporary trend towards structural abstraction. In 1960, along with Eduard Ovčáček, he was the founder and organizer of a series of exhibitions in Bratislava entitled Confrontations (1961–1964). However, his work soon began to diverge from that of his contemporaries, becoming dominated by geometric forms which imbued monochrome surfaces with a distinct rhythmic quality as well as the structural segmentation of visual information. In the mid-1960s Urbásek created collages that incorporated lettering in the manner of the lettrists. Letters are essentially quite precise geometric forms, and Urbásek used them as an autonomous means of expression. Already by 1965, letters (or fragments of them) had become the central geometric element in his works. Later he applied a process of abstraction that transformed the letters into individual straight and curved lines. In the early 1980s Urbásek began to explore monochrome painting. His vertically and horizontally segmented surfaces featured cross-hatching, which became his typical artistic signature. He used the working term “absolute painting” to describe his approach in these works. Miloš Urbásek ranked among the foremost exponents of Czechoslovak geometric abstraction and lettrism. He won several awards, including the prestigious Folkwang-Presse Preis in Essen (1967).