Jiří Padrta

Though he never studied art history formally, during the 1960s Jiří Padrta was one of the most prominent figures in this sphere in Czechoslovakia. After completing his studies in French and art education, in 1953 he began working at the journal Výtvarné práci, and later at Výtvarném umění. A trip to France lasting several months in 1956 had been crucial, and in his later work he focused on French art (of the 19th century, nouveau réalisme, Alberto Giacometti) and literature (André Breton, Charles Baudelaire). At the same time he caught up with issues on the global scene and subsequently presented them to the Czech public. The aim of his theoretical work was to set Czech art within a European context, to which, he was firmly convinced, it belonged. During the 1960s he focused on three main themes: constructivism, Lettrism, and the Russian avant-garde.

In the 1950s, we observe the gradual relaxation of the political situation that affected culture and art theory reflected in Padrta’s theoretical and critical activities. Previously the expectation had been that studies of modern art would be positive. From the fifties onwards critical and even negative voices were to be heard. In one of the first of his larger texts from 1956 entitled Několik poznámek k současné figurální kompozici (Several Observations on Contemporary Figure Composition) Padrta deployed a highly critical tone. He wrote of non-inventive artists who made little effort to be contemporary, and described the feelings to be derived from their work as “cold and gray”. He called for a revision of our existing relationship with traditions “regarding which there was either an embarrassed silence or people talked about in the form of allusion or detour”. Such a revision actually took place a year later thanks to Padrta, Miroslav Lamač and Jan Tomeš in the form of the exhibition entitled Zakladatelé moderního českého umění (Founders of Modern Czech Art). After a long delay it was at last again possible to see the works of representatives of expressionist Fauvism, though the aim of the exhibition was to build on the severed continuity of Czech modern art.

In the same year Padrta published the important article Umění nezobrazující a neobjektivní (Non-Representational and Non-Objective Art). In addition to containing reproductions that were difficult to get one’s hands on at that time (of works by Marcel Duchamp, Hans Hartung and Joan Miró), the essay was important for the perspective it adopted. The text charted the developmental line of abstract art in modern Western art from Cubism, via Futurism, all the way to contemporary 1950s art, including its theoretical underpinning. In addition, it represented a significant step towards the rehabilitation of abstract art, which until then had been perceived pejoratively as a type of fruitless Western formalism. At the same time, Padrta helped legitimise the work of the young generation, who were increasingly turning to non-figurative expression, in the eyes of the general public.

In the early 1960s Padrta focused on Cubism. He wrote about Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and after many years of research in collaboration with Lamač he prepared a work on Czech Cubism, which he was unable to publish because of the arrival of the normalisation period. The same was true of his essay on Marcel Duchamp. In the early 1960s his interests turned once more to his contemporaries. Along with his wife, the painter Ludmila Padrtová, he gathered around him a circle of friends that included Ivan Jirous, Jiří Kolář, Karel Malich and Zdeněk Sýkora, and awakened in them an interest in Lettrism. For Padrta visual poetry represented a tendency that drew on the impressions of contemporary life and reassessed the relationship and meaning of the image. He devoted several articles to Lettrism and its proponents, and in 1966 organised the international exhibition Obraz a písmo (Image and Letter).

However, he already had an intense interest in constructivist tendencies, which for him represented the most up-to-date direction corresponding to the development of global art. In 1963 the group of friends he had gathered around him became the Křižovatka group, and Padrta was the in-house theorist. This was not a group necessarily united by opinion or style, but above all by personal relationships and the need for a common set of objectives. In the hands of members of Křižovatka constructivism was the counterpoint to the then dominant, subjectively based, Art Informel. However, this does not mean that this aspect of Padrta’s is not of interest or that he rejected it, as we see, for example, in his studies of Mikuláš Medek and Vladimír Boudník.

In 1966 Padrta organised the exhibition Konstruktivní tendence. This was followed by the culmination of the activities of Křižovatka in the form of the exhibition Nová citlivost (New Sensitivity) organised in 1968 at the Mánes Gallery in Prague, the Karlovy Vary Art Gallery, and the Brno House of Arts. In his statement on the exhibition, Padrta attempted to illustrate the basis of constructivism, namely a positive attitude towards the contemporary world and civilisation. In the works of the exhibiting artists this was manifest in an inclination towards technicism, the use of industrially produced materials, geometric forms, and above all in the aesthetic principles based on the strictly depersonalised rationality and the search for order. A year earlier Padrta had published the article K situaci (On the Situation), in which, against the backdrop of the development of global art, he explained the meaning and objectives of constructivist tendencies. He described sensitively the change that had taken place and expressed his understanding of the confusion experienced by visitors when encountering works by Karel Malich, Hugo Demartini and Zdeněk Sýkora, adding that the certainty of what art is and what can be expected from a gallery visit had been lost. At the same time he defined constructivist tendencies as a method of reflecting upon the transformation of humankind and its thinking, and a greater possibility of knowledge via science and technology encouraging a revaluation of the relationship between art and society. As regards the exhibition Nová citlivost we can speak of Padrta as one of the first “curators” in the modern sense of the word in Czechoslovakia. He continued to devote his attention to artists belonging to the circle around Křižovatka by means of articles in journals and exhibition catalogues (Malich, Demartini, Boštík).

An important experience that foreshadowed Padrta’s theoretical work in the 1970s was a visit to Moscow in 1965, where he had a chance to see paintings by the then forbidden suprematist Kazimir Malevich and other representatives of the Russian avant-garde, as well as other examples of unofficial Soviet art of that time. With the arrival of normalisation in 1970, the journal Výtvarná práce, of which he was editor, could no longer be published for political reasons. The same was true a year later of the journal Výtvarné umění. Like Lamač, Ludmila Vachtová and many others, Padrta found himself on a list of undesirable theoreticians and lost any opportunity to publish. At the same time he developed a serious heart condition. He began to concentrate all of his energy on understanding the work of Malevich and the Russian avant-garde, and during the 1970s wrote several essays on the theory of suprematism. The outcome was to be a book. However, he was unable to complete this work, which was only published thanks to the intercession of František Šmejkal in 1996 under the title KazimirMalevič a suprematismus. A similar fate befell the book Osma a skupina výtvarných umělců 1907–1917 (Osma and the Group of Fine Artists 1907–1917), which came out in 1992 and for which Padrta had prepared an anthology of theory, criticism and polemic. Of the preserved works, his text for a monograph on Marcel Duchamp was published in 1999.

1948–1953
Univerzita Karlova v Praze, Pedagogická fakulta – Výtvarná výchova, Francouzština (Mgr.)

1970
Václav Jíra: Obrazy a objekty, Galerie Benedikta Rejta, Louny 1968
Nová citlivost. Křižovatka a hosté, Mánes, Praha
Nová citlivost. Křižovatka a hosté, Galerie umění Karlovy Vary, Karlovy Vary
Nová citlivost. Křižovatka a hosté, Dům umění města Brna, Brno
Il collage nell’arte ceca moderna, Galleria ferro di cavolo, Řím
Graphics tchécoslovaques, Francie 1967
Konstruktivní tendence, Galerie Benedikta Rejta, Louny
Konstruktivní tendence, Oblastní galerie Vysočiny v Jihlavě, Jihlava
Konstruktivní tendence, Galerie moderního umění v Roudnici nad Labem, Roudnice nad Labem 1959
Moderní české malířství II (léta dvacátá), Dům umění města Brna, Brno 1958
Zakladatelé moderního českého umění, Jízdárna Pražského hradu, Praha 1957
Zakladatelé moderního českého umění, Dům umění města Brna, Brno

Monografie: Kazimír Malevič a suprematismus, Torst, Praha, 1996 Osma a Skupina výtvarných umělců (Teorie. Kritika. Polemika), Odeon, Praha, 1992 Joan Miró, Odeon, nakladatelství krásné literatury a umění, Praha, 1967 Jaroslav Paur, Nakladatelství československých výtvarných umělců, Praha, 1964 Georges Braque, Státní nakladatelství krásné literatury a umění, Praha, 1964 Václav Bartovský, Nakladatelství československých výtvarných umělců, Praha, 1960 Pablo Picasso, Artia, Praha, 1960 Karel Boháček, Nakladatelství československých výtvarných umělců, Praha, 1958
Texty v katalozích:

Kamil Linhart: Reliéfy, Galerie Benedikta v Lounech, Louny, 1969 Jan Kubíček: Systém elementů v pozitivu a negativu, Galerie Václava Špály, Praha, 1969 Někde něco, Galerie Václava Špály, Praha, 1969 Russischer Konstruktivismus, in: katalog k výstavě Konstruktive Kunst: Elemente und Prinzipien, Biennale Nürnberg, 1969 Jiří Kolář: Koláže a objekty z let 1963–66, Galerie pod radnicí, Ústí nad Orlicí, 1967 Miloš Urbásek: Znaky, Galerie na Karlově náměstí, 1967 Obraz a písmo, Regionální muzeum Kolín, Kolín, 1966 Otakar Slavík, Galerie mladých, Praha, 1966 Robert Piesen a Pavla Mautnerová, Chemerinsky Art Gallery, Tel-Aviv, 1966 Karel Malich: Plastiky, reliéfy, grafiky, Galerie na Karlově náměstí, Praha, 1966 Eva Fuková: Stopy, kódy, hry, horizonty, Galerie Československý spisovatel, Praha, 1965 Nuove realta nell’Arte della Cecoslovachcia contemporanea, La Caraba club d’arte, Janov, 1965 Jiří Kolář, La Caraba club d’arte, Janov, 1965 Karel Malich, Hollar, Praha, 1964 Křižovatka, Galerie Václava Špály, Praha, 1964 Zdeněk Šimek: Plastiky, Galerie Václava Špály, Praha, 1964 Rychnov 63, Zámek Rychnov nad Kněžnou, Rychnov nad Kněžnou, 1963 Bohumil Kubišta, Mánes, Praha, 1960 Cyprian Majernik: Výbor z díla, Alšova síň Umělecké besedy, Praha, 1959 Skupina Holan-Holý-Kotík-Kotrba, Alšova síň Umělecké besedy, Praha, 1959
Články Sovětský produktivismus dvacátých let, in: Výtvarná práce, 18, 22, 1970, s. 3–4 Struktury Zdeňka Sýkory, in: 18, 6, 1970, s. 4 Hugo Demartini, in: Výtvarné umění, 20, 8, 1970, s. 370–381 Otázky pro Karla Malicha, in: Výtvarné umění, 19, 1, 1969, s. 11–15 Pracovat v souladu s kosmem a živly (K současné tvorbě Karla Malicha), in: Výtvarné umění, 19, 1, 1969, s. 3–10 L’art concret, in: Opus International, 9, 1968, s. 56–64 Václav Boštík, in: Výtvarné umění, 18, 5, 1968, s. 211–218 Avantgarda východní Evropy 1910-1930, in: Výtvarné umění, 18, 3, 1968, s. 135–136 K situaci, in: Výtvarné umění, 18, 1_2, 1968, s. 69–81 Současné umění a technologie, in: Umění a řemesla, ž, 1967, s. 209–215 Suprematismus a dnešek, in: Výtvarné umění, 17, 8-9, 1967, 446–451 Milan Grygar, in: Výtvarná práce, 14, 12, 1966, s. 5 Konstruktivní tendence, in: Výtvarné umění, 16, 6-7, 1966, 326–339 Světlo a pohyb, in: Výtvarné umění, 16, 8, 1966, s. 414–417 Vladimír Boudník, in: Výtvarná práce, 13, 22, 1965, s. 8 Kazimír Malevič, in: Výtvarná práce, 13, 10–11, 1965, s. 16 Stále neznámý Rykr, in: Výtvarná práce, 13, 15, 1965, s. 7–8 Mikuláš Medek, in: Výtvarné umění, 15, 9, 1965, s. 395–407 Kaligrafie, písmo a znak v obrazech Zdeňka Sklenáře, in: Výtvarné umění, 15, 7, 1965, s. 288–299 Prostor v díle Alberta Giacomettiho, in: Výtvarné umění, 13, 4, 1963, s. 157–165 Picassova přítomnost, in: Výtvarné umění, 13, 1, 1963, s. 32–39 Umění a příroda, in: in: Výtvarná práce, 10, 4, 1962, s. 12 Dilema západní kritiky, in: Výtvarná práce, 9, 6, 1961, 4–5 František Gross, in: Výtvarné umění, 11, 3, 1961, s. 125–131 Sochy Martina Reinera, in: Výtvarné umění, 10, 8, 1960, 349–354 Obrazy Jaroslava Paura, in: Výtvarné umění, 10, 3, 1960, 118–121 Pravoslav Sovák, in: Výtvarná práce, 7, 2, 1959, s. 8 Slovensko v dílech českého výtvarného umění, in: Výtvarná práce, 6, 20, 1958, s. 3–4 Otakar Kubín, in: Výtvarná práce, 6, 18, 1958, s. 10, 11, 14 Pařížská škola 1957, in: Výtvarná práce, 5, 3, 1957, s. 9, 12 Umění nezobrazující a neobjektivní, jeho počátky a vývoj, in: Výtvarné umění, 7, 4, 1957, s. 174–181 Umění nezobrazující a neobjektivní, jeho současný stav, in: Výtvarné umění, 7, 5, 1957, s. 214–221 Ferdinand Léger, in: Výtvarná práce4, 18-19, 1956, s. 10 Panorama současné světové plastiky, in: Výtvarná práce, 4, 13-14, 1956, s. 16 André Breton a ideál klasické krásy, in: Výtvarná práce, 4, 11, 1956, s. 12 K Baudelairovým statím o výtvarném umění, in: Výtvarné umění, 6, 5, 1956, 236 Deník Eugena Delacroixe, in: Výtvarná práce, 4, 6, 1956, s. 4 Sláva české ilustraci, in: Výtvarná práce, 2, 7, 1954, s. 1-2 Výstava kreseb a akvarelů národního umělce Václava Rabase, in: Výtvarná práce, 1, 14, 1953, s. 6