Solitaires (1950s)

Three years after the end of World War II, Czechoslovakia and its culture were subjected to another totalitarian system, this time set up and led by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In the field of art, it promoted socialist realism, violently implanted from the Soviet Union into all the so-called Eastern Bloc countries. The arts were broken into two factions at this time. Simply put, it was split into official art and the ‘undesirable’ art that arose on the edge of the interest of the professional public in the studios of uncompromising artists. Although the 1950s were one of the most tragic periods in Czech society and in the artistic culture of the 20th century, from today's point of view, the development of art forms during this time was quite wide. Official artists achieved great success at the EXPO '58 World Exhibition in Brussels. The Czechoslovak Pavilion was awarded the Golden Star. In addition, courageous individuals in the "underground" movement maintained the continuity with European culture. However, the art of the 1950s is not represented here as a confrontation of official and unofficial art, but through works of outstanding soloists or ‘solitaires’, whose work reflects the tragic atmosphere of this gloomy period of political trials, judicial murders, confiscation of property, and a terrifying attempt to despiritualise society.

One of the most distinctive artistic solitaires of this period is the painter Ivan Sobotka, whose start to life was marked by two totalitarian regimes - fascist and communist. In order to preserve his inner world, freedom and independence, he decided to separate his artistic work from his work for subsistence after graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He perceived the tense atmosphere of the 1950s as the coming apocalypse. This was also reflected in the existential themes of his paintings from that time, such as the 1954 People’s Corpses and Fool II from 1957. It is the period when his first "heads" began to emerge, which the painter devoted himself almost exclusively to from that time on.