František Kupka, also called Frank Kupka, or François Kupka, was a Czech-born French pioneer of abstract painting and one of the first completely nonrepresentational artists. His mature works contributed much to the foundations of purely abstract painting in the 20th century.
Kupka studied at the Prague and Vienna art academies and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he settled in 1895. In 1908-11 he experimented with Fauvism and with pointillism, a technique invented by the French painter Georges Seurat, whose colour-contrast theories led Kupka to study the aesthetic properties of colours.
Kupka stands as one of the most important abstractionists of the early twentieth century along with Mondrian and Kandinsky. This artist was one of the first innovators of pure abstraction. This work demonstrates his theory that painting could be articulated in chromatic relationships and as musicians were free to create sounds not found in nature, artists should be able to explore these same freedoms with forms and colors. Our work is from one of Kupka’s greatest periods, where organic forms seem to radiate from a centered and light giving source. These compositions are life giving, evocative of nature and harmony and are joyous in spirit. There has not been another artist since that has achieved the uniqueness of vision that Kupka brought forth although most abstractionists of the twentieth century sought inspiration and were influenced by these avant-garde studies.
Private collection, France