Jiri Kolar

JIRI KOLAR (Protivin, Czech Republic, 1914 - Prague, 2002). Untitled, 1992, from the "Suite Olympic Centennial". Silkscreen on Vélin d'Arches 270 gsm paper, copy 220/250. Signed and justified by hand. Size: 90 x 63 cm. The Olympic Suite is made up of 50 lithographs and silkscreen prints chosen to represent various contemporary artistic trends. It was published to commemorate the first centenary of modern Olympism. The artists chosen work in very diverse movements and styles, from the hyperrealism of Antonio López to the abstraction of Sol Lewitt, abstract expressionism, the geometrism of Arden Quin, conceptual art, pop art, the new realism of Baldaccini and Rotella, and the new fauvism of Dokoupil, among others. Among the artists represented are creators of great international renown, widely recognised by the critics. Born into a working-class family, Jiri Kolar moved to Prague in 1945, where he first worked as an editor and later devoted himself to poetry and the creation of collages. Kolar's language was influenced by surrealism and poetism (the Czech avant-garde poetic movement), particularly in the production of "rollages", a technique consisting of laminating important works of art in strips and reconstructing them in a new way. However, the arrival of the Communists to power in Czechoslovakia prevented Kolar from freely exhibiting and publishing his works. In fact, in 1950 he was imprisoned for the publication of a text called "Prometheus' Liver", written against the prevailing mentality of the time, which was closely linked to socialist realism. After a politically active period, Kolar emigrated to France, where he remained until the end of communism in 1989, regaining his Czech passport in 1992. Throughout his career as an artist, Jiri Kolar has held numerous exhibitions both in Europe and in the United States, most notably in 1881 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.