Beschreibung:

FAMILY
Description dimensions: 38 x 47 cm (h x w) period: Around 1908 Oil on canvas. This painting, whose provenance is the collection of sculptor (and Benes’s friend) Karel Dvorak, is a rare example of the Benes’s very early work. It dated from the period shortly after he graduated from the Prague Academy of Fine Arts and returned to undertaking study trips in Germany and Paris, after which his work started to reflect the influence of French modern painting, especially Fauvism and Cubism. He went on to be a central figure on the Czech art scene, drawing inspiration from the style and subjects of work by members of the Osma art group and the Group of Fine Artists, particularly Bohumil Kubista. As explained in the expert assessment by PhDr. Mahulena Neslehová: “The painting presents a meeting at a table, which is where the source of light is placed, giving shape to the figures around it: a woman in a kerchief seated to the right, the face of a woman, a man seated to the left, and a mother and child with their backs turned to us. In 1908 (until October 1908), Benes and Kubista shared a studio (see B. Kubista, Korespondence a úvahy, Prague 1960). At the time members of the Osma group (Benes exhibited at the second exhibition held at Topic Salon in the summer of 1908) were focused on the possibilities for expression offered by contrasting colors; moreover, Kubista was interested in the subject of everyday life (such as his pastels of Laundresses and paintings In the Train and In the Kitchen from 1908).”