VACLAV VYTLACIL (1892-1984)

AN ANALYSIS OF THE ARTIST'S WORK

Throughout his career, Vaclav Vytlacil took inspiration from studying the works of the masters. The various periods in his collection often correspond with his molding a certain artist’s style into his own.

Vytlacil traveled to Europe in the early 1920’s to study the paintings of Cezanne. The angular deformations and interrupted planes that typified Cezanne’s later work began to play a part in Vytlacil’s own still lifes. In Munich, Hans Hoffman encouraged his student’s entrance into the world of abstraction.

When Vytlacil returned to New York in the 1930’s, he sought to bring the modernism that he had discovered in Europe to the United States. Upon founding the American Abstract Artists, he continued to support a truly American identity in the modernist world. His still lifes and figures began to reflect the cubist rhetoric that he had studied in Paris in works of Mattisse and Picasso.

In an interview conducted by Bruce Hooton in 1966, he stated,

“…everyone turned to geometric painting. I think for the first time there were constructions made. I know I did eight or ten. I believe these were some of the very first constructions done in New York City on the basis of modern abstract sculptural form. Mine were sort of hard to describe- things hung onto a door- I mean various objects. I also did a three dimensional structure and had a great desire to go on with the three dimensional, but we were living in two rooms with a newly acquired family. So my wife instructed me ‘No more three dimensions’- and that was the end of the phase.”

In the late 30’s and early 40’s, Vaclav’s painting came closest to being non-representational. The collection housed by the Caldwell Gallery includes a number of pieces from this period, including one called “Untitled Abstraction” from 1938. With mixed media on paper mounted on panel, the work showcases unusual forms, both sharp and organic, floating in an overlapping atmosphere of black, white, brown, and dark blue. In homage to his mentor, Hans Hoffman, and the emerging American Modernism, he often incorporated unexplainable biomorphic and geometric forms into his compositions.

Throughout the next decade, Vytlacil’s returned to more representational elements but maintained an interest in modernist space. He developed freer brushstrokes and was less discriminatory in his choice of subject matter. This is evident in his paintings from Martha’s Vineyard. He used a predominantly cool palette of sea greens and blues with interjections of red and yellow. Though the subject of the painting is clear, the execution is abstracted and the lines are more loosely applied. His gouache “Fish in Net” from 1948 realizes the subject of the title, if unconventionally. The bodies of fish are outlined with simplistic, almost childlike lines with quick gestural strokes to represent the gills, the eyes, or the string of the net. They are laid flat against the canvas, and, without the suggestion of depth, they appear to be floating in space. The fish and the surrounding background are colored in with a myriad of unexpected tones further abstracting the forms. Other paintings like “Fishing Harbor” (1947) and “Two Gulls” from Martha’s Vineyard deconstruct their subjects, boats and seagulls respectively, in the same way.

Vytlacil maintained an interest in abstraction throughout his life but stopped short of achieving pure nonobjective art. His true gift to the art world lay in his continued advocacy of modern painting. Through his work and lengthy teaching career, his cutting-edge ideas reached a wide range of viewers and influenced an entire generation of younger artists.

AWARDS & AFFILIATIONS

1913 Prize, Art Institute of Chicago
1936 Gold Prize, Art Institute of Chicago
1936 Gold Prize, France
1914 Honorable Mention, Society of American Artists

COLLECTIONS

Boca Raton Museum of Art, FL
Caldwell Gallery, NY
Chicago Municipal Collection, IL
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, CO
David Findlay Jr. Inc, NY
Dessau Museum, Germany
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY
Milwaukee Art Institute, WI
Neuberger Museum of Art, NY
New Jersey State Museum, NJ
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, PA
Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Rochester Museum of Art, NY
Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, NE
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
University of Notre Dame Art Gallery in South Bend, IN
University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY
Whitney Museum of American Art, NY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Askart.com
2. Ebony, David. “Vaclav Vytlacil at David Findlay, Jr.” Art in America, April 2002 v90 i4 p154. Brant Publications, Inc. 2002
3. Falk, Peter Hastings. Who Was Who In American Art 1964-1975. Vol. III: P-Z. Sound View Press: CT. 3428
4. Glueck, Grace. Art in Review: ‘Vaclav Vytlacil and the Advent of American Modernism: 1920-1940.’ The New York Times, January 21, 2000.
5. Hooton, Bruce. Interview with Vaclav Vylacil, March 2, 1966. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
6. “Vaclav Vytlacil (American 1892-1984)” Gene Shapiro www.geneshapiro.com
7. “Vaclav Vytlacil, Artist; Began Abstract Group.” The New York Times, January 11, 1984.