(Jesene 1890–1943 Prague)
Untitled, 1933, signed and dated Janousˇek 33, on the reverse two circular stamps of the National Gallery, Prague (acting as exporting authority in the former Czechoslovakia), oil on canvas, 70 x 85 cm, framed

Provenance:
European Private Collection

František Janoušek was born in Bohemia in May 1890, and was originally a teacher. He was called to arms in the First World War, and spent 1915–1917 at the Front, only enrolling in the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1918. After finishing his studies, from 1924 onwards he exhibited his work regularly at the Mànes Society, one of the most important art associations in Prague.
Janoušek abandoned his initial Cubist style in favour of an art with a more fantastical inspiration, following his happy meanderings across Italy.
He was one of the participants at the exhibition “Poetry 1932”, and although he did not formally belong to the Surrealist group in Prague, formed in 1934, he continued to expand on the Surrealist theme independently of any group until the end of his life.
Czech Surrealism was born in the era in which a new crisis of European civilisation loomed large on the horizon.
Europe was assailed with angst, and Bohemia experienced this with particular intensity.
Economic crises, Nazism, political trials, and persecution: from the shadows and the chaos the premonitions of a new war emerged. As early as the beginning of the 19th century, the search for cultural compensation for the political condition became, in Bohemia and Slovakia, a fully-fledged movement. As a means of articulating this protest, Czech art defined itself as anti-Germanic, seeking contacts in the Mediterranean, and in particular in French culture. Surrealism, which emerged in Prague post-1930, became the reflection of the tragic face of Europe.
The Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia prevented Janoušek from exhibiting his later works to the public, although he continued to work with profound dedication until his premature death from illness in January 1943.
In 1969 the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome hosted an interesting group show on contemporary Czechoslovakian art, instigated by its director Palma Bucarelli and curated by Jindřich Chalupecký. In the autumn of the same year, the Galleria Schwarz in Milan opened an important retrospective dedicated to the work of František Janoušek, exhibiting 15 of the most iconic paintings of this visionary artist from the period 1933–1942.