Oldrich Kulhanek (1940 – 2013) Signed Engraving, Titled In Pencil In The Margin “why? »

Oldrich Kulhanek (1940 – 2013)
Engraving signed and dated 71, titled in pencil in the margin “Why? »
and numbered 2/40 Three words are inserted in the drawing of the board “Hate Hegemony Oppression”
Sheet 48x32
Mounted under plexiglass 64x48

- €540 -

Czech painter, graphic designer, illustrator, scenographer and teacher.
From 1958 he studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, in the studio of Karel Svolinský.
He graduated in 1964 with the poetry illustration cycles of Vladimír Holan and Christian Morgenstern.
In a graphic cycle created from 1968 to 1971, he included "a distorted portrait of Joseph Stalin, perforated five-pointed red stars or joyful faces of socialist workers transformed into a hideous smile.”
The graphics were identified as “ideologically dangerous” and condemned to destruction. Kulhánek spent a month in prison and was interrogated regularly for the next two years.
He is then prohibited from publishing. In the 1980s, he created lithographs inspired by the evolution of the human body.
Following the Velvet Revolution, he traveled to the United States and attended the Los Angeles Lithography Workshop. He also often goes to Belgium to study the works of the old masters.
He was a member of the Association of Czech Graphic Designers Hollar.
His works are part of the collections of renowned European and American art galleries and museums, such as the Library of Congress (Washington, United States), the Center Georges Pompidou (Paris, France), Albertina (Vienna, Austria), Kupferstichkabinett (Dresden, Germany), the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, USA), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands), the Folkwang Museum (Essen, Germany) and the Museum of Art and History (Geneva, Switzerland).
Kulhánek died suddenly in Prague on January 28, 2013 at the age of 72. One of his latest graphic works was inspired by the biblical story of Job.