Lot 8
  • 8

Jindřich Štyrský

Estimate
15,000 - 20,000 GBP
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Description

  • Jindřich Štyrský
  • Untitled (from The Portable Cabinet) (Stěhovací kabinet)
  • signed and dated Štyrský 1934 lower centre
  • collage
  • 38.7 by 25.7cm., 15¼ by 10in.

Provenance

Toyen (Marie Čermínová; with her estate sale stamp lower left; sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Succession Toyen, 21 June 1982, no lot number (‘hors catalogue’))
Merrill C. Berman (by 2004)
Ubu Gallery, New York
Purchased from the above on 26 February 2004

Exhibited

Prague, S.V.U. Mánes, The First Surrealist Exhibition in Prague, 1935
Prague, S.V.U. Mánes, Jindřich Štyrský, 1946
New York, Ubu Gallery, Avant-Gardes: Selections from the Merrill C. Berman Collection, 2004
Houston, Cullen Collection, 2011, no. 74, illustrated in the catalogue
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, Drawing Surrealism, 2013

Literature

Lenka Bydžovská & Karel Srp, Jindřich Štyrský, Prague, 2007, p. 288, no. 379, illustrated

Condition

The sheet has not been laid down and is simply held between the perspex and the backboard. Apart from some light staining in the upper left corner (visible in the catalogue illustration) and a faint crease adjacent to this, this work is in good original condition. Presented framed and glazed.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

The present work is a collage from The Portable Cabinet, one of 66 photomontages Štyrský created between 1934-35. Neither part of a narrative, nor intended to be seen in sequence, each collage was conceived as a work of art in its own right. The collages were first exhibited at The First Czech Surrealist Exhibition in Prague in 1935.    

With an exquisite economy of means, the work is a particularly eloquent expression of what lay at the heart of Surrealism. Apparently random images, ranging from the utilitarian to the luxuriant, are so arranged by Štyrský into an image that combines the scatalogical with the sexual. At the bottom is a lavatory brush, linked at the top to a partially smoked cigar, by way of an elegant ebony cane. Clasped around the cigar are the 'lips' of a bottle brush. Štyrský's juxtaposition of high and low brow items that exhibit soft and hard textures transform everyday objects into a highly charged image of sensual power. 

The images that evolved in Štyrský's series from The Portable Cabinet largely fall into two types: either concoctions of a few random items placed adjacent to each other in such a way as to imbue them with a new significance, presented on a plain background (as in the present work), or a single principle background image that Štyrský then mutated by adding contrasting images to subvert the meaning of the original scene (see lot 5). In Štyrský's development of the sparser concocted images, he re-used certain items, asparagus for example, or - as in the present work - the bottle brush, imbuing the elements with fetishistic meaning (fig. 1).      

In the catalogue of The First Czech Surrealist Exhibition in Prague at S.V.U. Mánes in 1935, Vítězslav Nezval described the impact that Štyrský's collage series from The Portable Cabinet, had on him: 'I was very surprised when I saw the first pieces of The Portable Cabinet, as we called this cycle. I was surprised when I saw that artificial figure, which Štyrský constructed out of asparagus and a woman's old shoe, or the figure composed of a divan, and a head taken from an advertisement for a preparation for increasing a woman's bust size. I was surprised when I saw the fifty or so prints with a similar poetic meaning, which Štyrský made as if in a dream and which confirmed to me that it was possible to unite two visual elements, no matter how different, just as it was possible to unite two poetic images, no matter how different. I cannot help quoting Breton here, who says on a similar subject: "We shall be forced to admit, in fact that everything creates, and that the least object, to which no particular symbolic role is assigned, is able to represent anything. The mind is wonderfully prompt at grasping the most tenuous relation that can exist between two objects taken at random..."' (Vítězslav Nezval quoted in Houston, Cullen Collection, p. 186).    

For another collage by Štyrský from The Portable Cabinet, see lot 5.