Toyen

Gallery of Surrealism, New York
Acquired from the above on December 22, 2003

"L'Univers de Toyen," in Le Minotaure, Paris, 2003, no. 35, illustrated in color p. 40

Prague, Galerie de la Ville de Prague, Toyen, 2000, n.n.

Born in Prague, Toyen (pseudonym of Marie Čermínová) was a painter, drafter and illustrator who is credited with the co-founding of the Czech Surrealist Movement. The pseudonym was adopted in 1923 in an effort to renounce any gender and the highly transgressive and subversive nature of Toyen’s art lies at the heart of the artist’s reputation. Toyen’s gender fluidity (rejecting being labelled as female, Toyen wore both women’s and men’s clothing and used masculine signifiers) led to a natural centralising of the themes of gender, sexual politics and eroticism in Toyen’s art, though it still maintained a focus on the experiences of women. Toyen experimented with erotic comedy in art and later in the more Surrealist aspect of desire, often with violent undertones.