After some time, there is an exhibition of Toyen (Marie Čermínová, 1902–1980) and Josef Šíma (1891–1971) to present two artists who ranked to the most outstanding personalities that established the form of the 20th-century Czech art. Almost unbelievably, their paths intersected in various periods no matter what steps they might have taken. The first encounter of the two on the artistic scene occurred during the 1920s when they exhibited with the art group Devětsil [Butterbur]. Josef Šíma was the first to take off to France, settling there for good in 1922. Toyen left for Paris somewhat later, in 1925, to work with painter Jindřich Štyrský a couple of years, and settled in Paris only as late as in 1947. Both Toyen and Šíma, however, were captivated by the arriving artistic trend, Surrealism, and its probes to the deep layers of human psyche. The years of 1925, 1929 and 1932 brought Toyen and Šíma together at several group exhibitions: first at the international show “L’Art d’aujourd’hu”, organized in the Parisian Salle de la Ville, second at the exhibition of the contemporary Czech painting, held in the Prague gallery Aventine Garret, and, finally, at the 1932 extensive exhibition of painting and sculpture by the leading representatives of the European Surrealist movement, entitled “Poetry 1932” and organized by the Prague Mánes Association of Fine Artists (participating artists from abroad included J. Arp, S. Dalí, M. Ernst, Chirico, P. Klee, A. Masson, J. Miró, and I.Tanguy, while the Czech side was represented by 11 artists headed by Toyen, J. Šíma and J. Štyrský). In 1935 Josef Šíma escorted André Breton and Paul Eduard to Prague where Toyen and Vítězslav Nezval had founded the Surrealist Group a year before. Here, again, we can see the close connection between the two artists, provided by the significant representative of the world Surrealism, André Breton. Toyen became member of Breton’s Surrealist group after 1947. The exhibition activities of Toyen and Šíma occured in the most famous galleries of Paris, and their ultimate works, characteristic of extraordinary spiritual insight and painting refinement, became significant not only for Czechoslovak and Czech fine arts but also for the 20th fine art in general. The present exhibition summarizes works by Toyen and Šíma that date from 1953 to 1974. It displays Šíma’s paintings from the 1960s as, for example, the Islands (1961), Orpheus (1960), and Milan Plains (1963). It also presents one of the fundamental pillars of Toyen’s post-war painting oeuvre, As the Law Felt Silent (1969). The aim of the curators is to present a complex picture of the work of the two artists not only via their paintings. It also underlines the significance of their prints, displaying rare, hand-colored works, series and bibliophile’s items as, for example, Tower Well – Fragments of Dreams (1967), Sacrilegious Forest (1970), Target Range (1973), and Consecration and Desecration of Love (1960). The official opening of the exhibition is on 18 February 2009 on 6:30 p.m. (opening speech Karel Srp). The exhibition runs to 5 April 2009. GALERIE MODERNA Prague 1 – New Town Masarykovo Embankment 24 phone: +420 222 520 252 e-mail: galeriemoderna@seznam.cz mail@galeriemoderna.cz www.galeriemoderna.cz Opening hours: daily from 10 a.m. to 12 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Entrance fee: optional
