František Vobecký (1902-1990)

THE BALL GAME

1933
Oil on canvas, 78x104 cm (83,5x108 cm), signed and dated lower right "F. Vobecký 1933". Framed. "The Ball Game" is a masterpiece by František Vobecký, a piece that undoubtedly ranks among the artist`s best and most artistically progressive and evocative paintings from the most valuable period when the author actively participated in the breakthroughs of the Czech interwar avant-garde. It is fascinating how František Vobecký managed to incredibly artistically develop during the 1920s. Undoubtedly contributing to this was his two-year French experience (1926-1928), which many of his colleagues could envy. In the early 1930s, when, on the recommendation of Václav Špála, who must have been impressed with the accentuated colorism of Špála`s paintings, he was accepted into the ranks of the members of the Mánes Union of Fine Artists, he entered his artistically happiest period. This begins with a series of lyrically cubist still lifes, composed of structurally roughened, permeating surfaces with linear hints of things, which originally developed an artificialist poetics. In 1932, this painting composition began to dramatize, tranquil still lifes were replaced by energetic figurative compositions, partly drawing on imaginative cubism and partly surrealistic, in which the figures become subjects of miraculous metamorphoses... The presented painting "The Ball Game" by František Vobecký is a wonderful example of Czech imaginative painting from the first half of the 1930s. The artist`s imaginative perception of reality is transferred into the painting as a distinct game - with objects, concepts, shapes, memories; a very intellectual game. From the expert opinion by PhDr. Rea Michalové, Ph.D. Provenance: from the inheritance of Antonín Dufek (1943-2023) Exhibited: 177th member`s exhibition, SVU Mánes, Prague, October 19 - November 26, 1933, catalogue no. 174 or 177-179 (Picture I - Picture IV) Published in: František Vobecký, Raná tvorba 1926-1938, GHMP, 1985, reproduced in unpaged picture block, catalogue no. 20