Diss.--Philosophischen Fakultät--Köln--Universität zu Köln, 1997. / Bio-bibliogr. p. 127-187.

The Printmaking of Czech Art Informel Author: Jiří Krtička Abstract The thesis deals comprehensively with the printmaking of Czech Art Informel: explores its sources, principles and themes, evaluates contributions of individual artists and analyses the technique of "structural printmaking". The first artworks in Informel style in Czechoslovakia were created during World War II by Josef Istler who belongs to European protagonists of Art Informel movement. In post-war years Istler engaged mostly in painting and monotyping. For this reason it was Vladimír Boudník who became the leading personality of Czech Informel printmaking. In 1949 he declared in two manifestos of "explosionalism" his vision of a new art that he followed and carried out with admirable consistency till the end of his life. In the middle of 1950s Boudník started to elaborate "structural printmaking" - innovative printmaking methods that became a way to fulfil his vision. His work influenced strongly the whole generation of Czech artists and essentially helped to introduce Art Informel to Czechoslovakia against the ideologic resistance of the communist regime. Czech Informel achieved excellent qualities in Europe-wide comparison and "structural printmaking" became its original contribution to the world fine art. Keywords Art Informel,...

L’objectif de cette Thèse est de collecter, d’analyser et de faire connaître le contenu des archives internationales et familiales inédites, rendant compte, par leur diversité, des activités protéiformes de Michel Tapié de Céleyran (1909-1987). Inventant sa profession d’entrepreneur d’art en conciliant plusieurs activités : critique d’art, éditeur, conseiller artistique, courtier et collectionneur, il a mis en relation des galeries internationales en organisant, à travers le monde des expositions de ses artistes. Il a contribué aux destinées internationales de plus de cent-quatre-vingt artistes dont certains noms brillent, dans la constellation Tapié, plus que d’autres : Dubuffet,Mathieu, Pollock, Riopelle, Sam Francis, Tapiès, Saura, Fontana, De Kooning.Soucieux de se créer une position pour l’actualité et pour l’histoire, il inventa « Un Art Autre », un véritable système théorique et marchand s’appuyant sur des méthodes de communication qu’il sut créer avec l’aide de ses amis artistes de combat : l’édition au service de son autopromotion, la fabrication de l’événement à partir des expositions itinérantes relayées par la presse, en France, en Espagne, aux États- Unis, en Italie, au Japon et en Iran.« Il Profeta » est le surnom que lui attribuent les artistes italiens, séduits par la personnalité de Michel Tapié qui est venu en Italie apporter la parole de l’art Informel dont il inventa l’appellation. / The aim of this PhD thesis is to collect, analyse and promote the content ofunpublished international and family archives, highlighting the diversity of MichelTapié de Céleyran (1909-1987)’s activities. Tapié invented his own trade as an artentrepreneur, mixing several occupations: art critic, publisher, art councillor, trader and collector. He also connected together international galleries, organising exhibitions of his own artists, worldwide. He took part in the international fate of more than 180 artists, forming Tapié’s constellation, in which some names still shine more that others, such as Dubuffet, Mathieu, Pollock, Riopelle, Sam Francis, Tapiès, Saura, Fontana, De Kooning.Paying close attention to his own status in the current events and in history, Tapié invented « An Art of an Other Kind », which is a true theoretical and tradingsystem. Thus, he relied on communication methods that he created with the help ofhis battle friends: publishing for self promotion, creating a buzz based on travelling exhibitions, with media coverage in France, Spain, United States, Italy, Japan and Iran.« Il Profeta » was the nickname attributed to him by Italian artists, seduced by Michel Tapié’s personality, who came to Italy and brought in the Informal art’s word, which he invented the designation.

Jean Degottex, né en 1918 et décédé en 1988, est un peintre qui a exercé des années 1938 jusqu'à sa mort, soit pendant cinquante ans. Se tournant assez tôt dans sa pratique vers une peinture gestuelle, il est vite remarqué pour cela par André Breton qui y voit la mise en pratique de l'automatisme qu'il recherchait dans l'écriture. Il n'a cependant jamais adhéré au surréalisme tout en étant sensible à certains de ses aspects. La poésie en particulier est une de ses sources d'inspiration majeure. Curieux de l'Orient et de ses calligraphies, il montre un intérêt plus particulier pour l'Asie. Après une rupture importante au milieu des années 60, il reprend son travail en se focalisant tour à tour sur le cercle, la déchirure ou encore la ligne afin de mettre en évidence les caractéristiques plastiques de la matière : la toile, le papier, le bois sont ainsi ouverts, écorchés, disséqués et montrés tels quels, afin de ne rien cacher des processus à l’œuvre dans le travail du peintre. Sensible aux climats sociaux de son temps, la peinture est pour lui une façon de militer. A partir de la biographie du peintre, basée sur ses propres archives, ce travail met en évidence ses contacts, ses réseaux et sa place en France et dans le Monde. L'analyse s'arrête sur ses outils et ses méthodes de travail et montre également l'importance du temps et de la chronologie car elle éclaire la logique interne à l’œuvre, permettant de passer d’une pièce ou d'une série (appelée Suite chez Degottex) à la suivante. / Jean Degottex, was born in 1918 and died in 1988. He worked from 1938 to his death, during fifty years. Early using gestural painting, he is recognized by André Breton for that, who is seeing in this manner the perfect automatism in painting, the same automatism he was seeking in writing. Degottex never subscribed to Surrealism, but he was receptive to some of its aspects. Poesy is one of his major sources of inspiration. Interested in East and its calligraphies, he showed a special interest for Asia. After an important break in his work in the middle of the Sixties, he went back to his work by making a focus on the circle, the rip or the line, with the will to show all the plastic characteritics of the material. Canvas, paper or wood are opened, skinned, dissected and shown as is, with the desire to hide nothing of the processes at work in the painter's work. Sensitive to the social climate of his time, painting was for him a way to militate. From his biography, based on his own archives, this work highlights his contacts, his networks and his place in France and in the World. The analysis put an emphasis on his tools and working methods, and also shows the importance of time and chronology, as it sheds light on the painter's work internal logic, moving from a piece or a series (called Suites by Degottex) to the next one.

JANA BLAHNÍKOVÁ Keywords: texture, matter, art informel, existentialism, time, change, traces, beauty, ugliness, imagination Abstract: The Master Thesis concerns itself with changes of artificial textures as an inspiration for creative work. By artificial textures are meant paints and layers on objects, on which time has left its mark. A part of the Thesis deals briefly with the basic categories of aesthetics with special regard to texture change. The Thesis maps out the Czech and the world art scene of the 1950s and 1960s and focuses on the main artists of that period, whose work relates to the subject. The theoretical base is linked with the artists and art schools of thought, which is presented in the didactic section a part of which I used in my practical work and described in the reflection.

Le monde d’où émerge la peinture informelle est celui d’un temps où, après les horreurs de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les artistes prennent conscience que l’art ne peut plus se faire de la même manière. En Espagne, ce monde est celui qui n’est pas encore guéri des séquelles de la Guerre Civile et qui a détruit toute forme de culture moderne. Si les artistes préfèrent prendre le parti de donner à voir les matériaux utilisés plutôt que des images identifiables, la peinture informelle ne repose pas pour autant sur un vide de la représentation. En donnant à voir alors la perception en train d’opérer, l’expérience qu’il fait du monde, le peintre tente de changer la façon de le voir. La première étape de ce travail a pour objet d’étudier le cas de l’Espagne comme phénomène singulier, les artistes s’insérant dans les grands courants de pensée européens, alors que l’Espagne sort tout juste de son isolement. Dans une perspective plus esthétique, la seconde étape analyse le processus de création en montrant que la question est de créer des images en l’absence d’images. Les options qui s’offrent à l’artiste passeront par la matière et par le geste ; aussi s’agit-il d’analyser comment les peintres s’attachent à mettre en valeur les matériaux et comment le geste sera déterminant pour établir ensuite une relation spécifique de l’homme à la matière. Dans une troisième étape, la réflexion s’efforce de caractériser la création comme un faire et une recherche à la fois. L’acte de peindre sera alors à envisager comme un effort qui vise à laisser être les choses telles qu’elles sont, en même temps qu’il permet au peintre d’ouvrir le monde qui est le sien / The world from which informal painting arises corresponds to a time, after the horrors of the Second World War, when artists became aware that art could not be performed the same way as before. In Spain it reflects the world that has not yet been healed of the sequels of the Civil War as well as the world that has wiped out any form of modern culture. If the artists would rather have the material they use be seen than be plainly identified images, informal painting, nevertheless, does not rest on the absence of representation. That is why getting us to see his perception in the making and the experience he derives from the world, the painter is trying to change the way it is seen. The first stage of this work aims at studying the example of Spain as a unique phenomenon, its artists were involved in the great European movement of thought while Spain had just broken out of its isolation. From a closer aesthetic angle, the second stage analyses the creative process and shows that what matters is to create images out of their absence. The options available to the artist will encompass matter and action; what is at stake, thus, is the analysis of the attempt by painters to emphasize the importance of material, to show how action will be a determining factor to establish, after, a specific relation from man to matter. In a third stage, reflection tries to characterize creation as both the act of making and a quest. The act of painting will therefore have to be considered as an effort meant to leave things be as they are, while, at the same time, it will enable the artist to open up the world that is his universe

My dissertation thesis seeks to explore some specific social aspects of the dialogue between traditional Chinese art and thinking and Czech art scene after the February1948, when the Communist party took power in former Czechoslovakia. I am mainly interested in the problematic of inspiration from traditional Chinese calligraphy and Daoist philosophy on Czech painting, visual poetry and literature in the 1950s and 1960s. I will argue that the appropriation of selected Chinese philosophical and artistic themes helped Czech artists, working under the communist repression, to express their innermost human emotions in relation to home, culture, freedom, and one's artistic and human destiny. The communist regime meant to many artists the end of their official artistic career. Life in seclusion outside the main political and social streams became for some of them an opportunity to display pent-up feelings of affinity with the life stories of the ancient Daoist thinkers. In this context, focus is primarily placed on an analysis of several distinctive visual and literary works by Czech leading artists of the period, especially on the selected works by the visual artists Emil Filla, Jiří Kolář, Vladimír Boudník, Jan Kotík or Zdeněk Sklenář and the novelist Bohumil Hrabal (1914 - 1997) and his world famous...