JACQUES LŒUILLE

Over the course of his eighty-five years (1871-1957),František Kupka lived through a period when modern art’s most important movements challenged one another: Impressionism, Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Suprematism, Expressionism, Constructivism... With so many avant-garde movements, it was one of the liveliest periods in the history of art. Some artists’ names would be forever bound to the movements for which they are the figureheads: Picasso (1881-1973) and Cubism; Malevich (1879-1935) and Suprematism; Marinetti (1876-1944) and Futurism, etc. Yet there is another history of the first half of the 20th century, embodied by the artists who move between trends, who influence and shade them. These artists can’t be reduced to a single movement; their signature doesn’t adorn a manifesto; they refused the ‘isms’ and went against their time’s trends. At their head was František Kupka.