20th Century Art: A Different Perspective

20th Century Art: A Different Perspective

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 23. Cubist Still Life (Kubistické zátiší).

Property from the Collection of the Hascoe Family

Emil Filla

Cubist Still Life (Kubistické zátiší)

Lot Closed

November 9, 02:20 PM GMT

Estimate

10,000 - 15,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Collection of the Hascoe Family

Emil Filla

Czech

1882 - 1953

Cubist Still Life (Kubistické zátiší)


signed and dated E. Filla / 1914 lower right

watercolour, brush and india ink on paper

Unframed: 50 by 38cm., 19¾ by 15in.

Framed: 67 by 55.5cm., 26¼ by 21¾in.

Executed in 1914. 


The authenticity of this work was confirmed by Prof. PhDr. Vojtěch Lahoda, CSc in 2011.

Milan Heidenreich, Gothenburg (acquired from the artist)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, 24 March 1998, lot 3
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner
Jiří Hlušička, The Hascoe Collection of Czech Modern Art, Prague, 2004, p. 27, mentioned; p. 189, no. P17, catalogued, p. 61, pl. 42, illustrated
Greenwich, Connecticut, Bruce Museum, The Pleasures of Collecting: Part II, Modern and Contemporary Art, 2003

The ground-breaking visual vocabulary of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque was the point of reference for Filla's and other Czech cubists' works from the early 1910s onwards, and would pervade Czech art, architecture and the decorative arts. In 1911 Filla edited several issues of the 'Mánes Union of Fine Arts' journal Volné směry, in which he promoted Cubism and published reproductions of Picasso's works that he had seen in Paris. From this point, the randomly intersecting surfaces and planes and nearly monochromatic palette of the French Cubists would dominate his oeuvre through the 1920s.


Filla was an avant-garde renaissance man, with a strong and intellectualised ideology behind his writings as well as the paintings, sculptures and prints he created. He started his career in an insurance office in Brno then abandoned his business pursuits to become a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1903. After winning the Academy's first prize the following year, Filla journeyed through Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy, soaking up the iconography of western European art and its history. Upon his return to his home country, Filla threw himself head-first into the artistic avant-garde, co-founding together with Kubišta the 'Osma' group in 1907, a year later the 'Mánes Union of Artists', and the 'Group of Fine Artists' in 1911. It was Filla's purist interpretation of Cubism that became the hallmark of the Group of Fine Artists.


Between 1911 and 1920 Filla regularly spent time in Paris gaining exposure to the most radical and influential art movements of the time, most importantly Cubism as pioneered by Picasso and Braque, who became close friends. Together they set out to formulate and promote Cubism. It was through Filla that Picasso had his first one man show in Prague. Back in his homeland, Filla became a leader of the avant-garde, and Czechoslovakia the alternative centre for Cubism outside of Paris. 


Filla’s love of Cubism was enduring and while his style evolved, cubist elements are evident in his paintings throughout his career.