(Vadín-Okrouhlice 1890–1977 Prague)
Still life with three apples, 1928, signed and dated J. Zerzavý 1928, oil on canvas, 35 x 46.5 cm, framed

Certificate by PhDr. Karel Srp, 5.2.2015.

Provenance:
Private Collection, Brno (label on the reverse)
acquired from the above by the father of the present owner around 1990 –
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris-Prague 1906–1930, March – April 1966, exh. cat. no. 125, ill. (Text: Bernard Dorival) (Nature morte à la serviette et aux pommes) (label on the reverse)
Brno, Dům pánů z Kunštátu, Jan Zrzavý, his work from 1907–1962, April – June 1963, cat. no. 82
Prague, Mánes, Jan Zrzavý, his work from 1907–1962, January – March 1963, cat. no. 110
Prague, Municipal House, Jan Zrzavý – an exhibition of his works 1905–1940, March 1940, cat. no. 79, p. 22
Prague, Aventinská mansarda, Jan Zrzavý, October – December 1928, no. 8 (Still life with three apples)

Literature:
Miroslav Lamač, Prague 1980, no. 101 with ill. (Still life with three apples)
František Dvořák, Jan Zrzavý, Prague 1965, no. 36 with ill. (Still life on the marble table)
Svět Jana Zrzavého, ed. National Gallery, Prague 1963, with ill.
(Still life with 3 apples and a blue vase)
Karel Šourek, Jan Zrzavý, Works from 1906–1940, Prague 1941,
no. LXXVIII with ill. (Still life with a vase and three apples)

Published in:
Musaion (annual Magazine), 1928, no. 1, page 4, with ill.

Czech art of the interwar period is charac terized by a great stylistic diversity, reflecting the spirit of optimism after the turmoil of war and the self-confidence of the young nation at the center of Europe. Although Czech Cubism in its unmistakable Cubo-Expressio nist form, encompassing not only painting but also architecture, sculpture and the applied arts, subsided with the First World War, from the mid-1920s it once again became a central reference point for the avant-garde.

After Bohumil Kubišta died in 1918 and Otto Gutfreund began to change his style, Emil Filla (lots 30 and 31) became a pioneer of modernism and a leading figure for a younger generation of artists. Influenced by the analytical cubism of Braque and Picasso, Filla interrogated the underlying ideas early on and developed them into an independent style of painting. He uses the decomposition method of Cubism as a freely available language and formal system to explore the dynamic possibilities of pictorial space. In doing so, he combines the abstract vocabulary with the painterly autonomy of his brush strokes and a spiritualisation of form that reflects his belief that the painting is a projection of the artist’s spiritual life. Filla’s works are characterised by a balanced expressivity and an idiosyncratic use of colour. In his later paintings, his choice of subjects was influenced by 17th-century Dutch still lifes. He began to combine the cubist reduction of rectangular blocks and surfaces with naturalistic elements such as sliced lemons, crystal glasses and grapes.

The association Tvrdošíjní (‘the obstinate’), on the other hand, founded as early as 1918 and whose members included Josef Capek, Vlastislav Hofman, Václav Špála (lot 28) and Jan Zrzavý (lots 29 and 32), was guided by the desire for a happy life and simple things, and did not pursue a unified program. In their works, alongside the fading Cubism, a clear tendency towards naïve primitivism and neo classicism can be seen, exemplified by the work of Jan Zrzavý. His still lifes are a synthesis of firmly defined cubist formal elements, a naivety partly inspired by J. Rousseau, which is expressed, among other things, in the simple arrangement and isolation of individual objects, and a relationship to reality that develops an intimate poetry from intuition and inter nalization of thought.

The diverse cultural events of the Prague scene in the 1920s and 1930s were dominated by various artists’ associations determined to continue the progression of the avant-garde. In the progressive group Devetsil (‘butterbur’) some members’ interest in primitivist forms was dominant at the beginning; however, from 1922 the concept of proletarian art took centre stage under the leadership of Karel Teige. The various forms of expression in this very broad movement extend to the surrealist work of Jindrich Štyrský and Josef Šíma (lot 107) as well.