Emil Filla
Emil Filla ( born April 4, 1882 in Chropyně, Moravia, † October 7, 1953 in Prague) was a Czech painter, graphic artist, sculptor. He is one of the most important representatives of Czech Cubism.
Life
Filla was born in 1882 the son of a railway official at the station of Chropyně. The following year the family moved to Brno.
From 1903 Filla studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague under Franz Thiele and Blaise Bukovac. Since he won the first prize in 1904.
Filla painting career began at 1905. This year he admired the exhibition of Edvard Munch and founded with other young artists, the artists' group Osma ( The Eight ). Under the influence of Munch his art style went slowly from impressionism to expressionism. From this time the famous work The reader of Dostoevsky (1907 ) was born.
In between, he traveled through Europe ( Germany, Holland, France and Italy ) to as works of the old masters to study. In Italy, he was particularly fascinated by the works of Giotto. To 1910, Filla made in Paris with works by Braque, Gris and Picasso known. Braque and Picasso met Filla by Czech art historian Vincenç Kramář know personally and Cubism was slow for him the basis of his other art.
As of 1911, Filla held regularly in Paris and attended among others Picasso, Braque and Paul Cézanne. In Venice, Filla sat with Tintoretto, El Greco and other painters apart from the Baroque period. On March 27, 1913 married Filla Krejčová Hana, the daughter of philosopher and psychologist František Krejčí. Later, he made friends with the Czech sculptor Otto Gutfreund.
1914 Filla had fled to Holland because of World War II in exile. While the French avant-garde slowly moved away from Cubism, Filla remained loyal to him. He picked up by the Dutch still life composition and the choice of motifs. As an example of the style of life is to be mentioned with map. In goldfish at the window from the year 1916, the influence of the Dutch artist group De Stijl is easy to recognize.
When World War II ended in 1918, Filla came to Prague and was again active as an artist. In 1921 he created the cubist final work woman with carpet. In the same year he participated in the exhibition at the Walden Gelerie in Berlin, and at the exhibition of the Free Secession. When drawing up the Freie Secession also Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Oskar Kokoschka, Paul Klee were represented among others.
On August 29, 1937 Filla talked in the Anti-Fascist Assembly and was arrested on 1 September 1939 and interned until 1945 in Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camp. After he returned on May 21, 1945 by Buchwald to Prague, he was appointed professor at the Prague School of Applied Arts. 1947 Filla painted a monumental work The liberation of Buchenwald. In his last years he devoted himself to landscape painting.
On October 6, 1953 Emil Filla died in Prague and was buried in the cemetery Střešovice.