František Drtikol, Jaroslav Rössler, Jaromír Funke, Eugen Wiškovský

France, Germany and Russia are considered, quite truthfully, the main centres of the photographic avant-garde of the interwar period. However, in this period, in Czechoslovakia too many important and original works were created which were not only an imitative reflection of the foreign models but made an import ant contribution into the development of the art of photography. As it was the case with the Polish famous avant-garde artists such as Witkacy, Podsadecki, Krzywobłocki and a number of others re-discovered many years after they died, the leaders of the Czech photograph avant-garde were not fully appreciated until the last decade.

The first Czech photographer of the world renown was František Drtikol (1883-1961). After the 1st World War inspired by the Art Nouveau and symbolism, he started to create drawing on futurism, expressionism and cubism. As the time passed, his mature style took its final form. Starting in 1923, he presented nude photographs of the female and male models against the geometrical setting, or their shadows and the transcendent circles of lights and cones arranging them in various expressive positions. These early works showed the influences of modern dance and theatre. The importance of motion in his photographs was emphasised by the dynamic poses and reinforced through the introduction of diagonal plains on which the models were standing or lying. At the same time, he was taking pictures of the details of the models’ bodies emphasizing the individual shapes. His earlier works presented lyrical fairies and “femmes fatales” as the symbolic literary characters; in the period 1923-1929 he praised the classical ideal of the harmonious union of the spiritual and physical beauty and fitness in the photographs of the dancers. Numerous nude photographs made by Drtikol were quite audacious in his time; He showed the whole of the bare body and its natural beauty. But even then his works were filled with symbolic meanings – the author’s increasing interest in Buddhism and other Eastern philosophical and religious systems became apparent.
Although Drtikol never became a member of any of the avant-garde groups, his student and assistant Rössler (1902- 1990) as the only professional photographer became a member of the leading avant-garde group called Devetisil [The Nine Powers]. He was the first artist in Czechoslovakia to create his works under the strong influence of abstractionism and constructivism. Already in 1923 he took pictures of the moving spotlights using the long exposition and the specially blurred Tessar lenses. The pictures represent blurred circles, biconvex objects, curved cones which give the viewers an impression of a feverish visions and luminous ancient matter. He was the first photographer to focus on light which plays the key role in photography in general. His works remind of the works of Christian Schad, Man Ray or Laszlo Moholy-Nagy except that they are traditional camera pictures. In the period 1923-25 he photographed the compositions of the common objects such as ashtrays, candles, reels wine glasses against the background of geometrical shapes cut from the black and white cardboard. Already in “Opus I” (1919) he used diagonal compositions and daring takes in a cycle of photographs and photomontage showing the mixture of the Petřínské Tower in Prage and Eiffel Tower in Paris whose steel constructions he regarded as the symbols of modernity equally with the trains, cars or radio. He often presented the steel constructions as dreamlike objects by recording them as the configuration of black and white plains in an almost abstract dimension.
Another pioneer of the Czech photograph avant-garde is Jaromír Funke (1896-1945) who already in the 1st half of 1920s departed from the picturesque views of landscapes and genre scenes in favour of almost abstract compositions where the concrete objects were hard to recognized. In his still lifes with glass blocks, bottles or negatives, which he created since 1923, the shadows of the objects on the background started to play the main role. The object as such was no longer important; its shadow and reflections came into foreground. The themes of light, transparency and light reflections reached their zenith in the “Abtstraktni fota” [Abstract Photographs] cycle created in the period 1927-1929. In parallel, he made the first pictures in the spirit of constructivism and new reality. Using the unconventional composition takes, daring frames and diagonal arrangements, he reduced the recording of the simple motives to their basic shapes. Funke accentuated the style of the new reality and constructivism also in the teaching activity. He taught photography at the School of Arts and Crafts in Bratislava in the first half of 1930s and at the Photograph Division of the State School of Graphic Art in Prague since 1935 where he established an almost ideal teaching duet with Josef Ehm. Funke was also the first Czech photographer to have created the photographs which provided a response to the works of Eugene Atget (Reflexe cycle) and the spectral non-manipulated photographs of various magical objects put together (“Time Goes On” cycle).
The most original and radical works in the history of the Czech avant-garde photograph art were created by Eugene Wiškovsky (1888-1964). He made an extraordinary artistic record of the iron bars, turbines and concrete pipes, electric al insulators, gramophone records and other common objects arranged in the carefully thought compositions. The inventive takes of the details of the objects, detail blow-up and presentation out of the context, conversion of the colourful reality into black and white picture or rhythmical repetitions of certain motives, not only enabled him to change the conventional perception of the objects but also to discover their surprising symbolic meaning. His works are a realization of the saying that “the less extraordinary the content, the more extraordinary way of presenting it.” Despite the rationality and formal perfection, Wiškovsky rather than the faithfully and impressively rendering the artistic nature of the objects was increasingly focused on recording his own impressions. Showing the object so that it suggests an entirely different thing, which is characteristic of Edward Weston, became the dominating feature of Wiškovsky art. In the latter half of 1930s, Wiškovský’s interest shifted towards the Prague neighbouring areas where his primary interest was focused on impressive geometrical shapes, unusual surface texture and metaphorical scenes. The artistic output of Eugene Wiškovsky is complemented with the unusual and progressive theoretical works; he is distinguished not by the size but by the spectrum of topics, their originality, refined details and deep thought. Together with the three other authors whose works are exhibited in Warsaw as the limited photographs developed from the original negatives, he represents the originality and richness of styles and topics used by the Czech photograph avant-garde, which includes other important artists.

Galeria Sztuki Mediów ASP w Warszawie [Media Arts Gallery of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts]
ul. Spokojna 15
exhibition curator: Vladimir Birgus

Official opening of the exhibition: 24.04, 6.00 p.m. / (until 19.05)

The exhibition was organised by the Institute of Creative Photography (Slezke University) in Opava in co-operation with the Praski Dom Fotografii (Praga House of Photography) and Centrum Czeskim w Warszawie [Czech Centre in Warsaw].