This book is based on interviews conducted with the author by Kateřina Malíková and Václav Kopecký in 2021 and 2022 during repeated visits to his apartment in Olomouc. Jaroslav Fian, then eighty years old, was in excellent physical and mental condition, although he was already battling a treacherous illness that would prove fatal. He personally participated in the preparation of these texts, but his sudden and unexpected passing in early 2023 delayed the publication of this book and the organization of his retrospective exhibition by three long years.
This book is a tribute to a small, great man who lived quietly and humbly, secluded among paintings and books in his dreamed-of fantastic world, into which he allows us to glimpse through his brush and palette.
Jaroslav Fian's paintings allow us to cautiously enter the world of imagination and dreams of an unobtrusive and shy man who, despite the gray reality, created his own world full of colors, cabaret, shiny cars and beautiful women, as well as Paris at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when the beautiful and glorious Belle Époque erupted in full, and the ubiquitous joy seemed as if it would never end.
He himself never personally saw this world, but he carried its image within him and hid it throughout his life. Through his work, Jaroslav Fian became our guide through the fragile world of his own fantasy, so that we can embark together on a journey to places where nothing is real, but where we find all the more vivid and beautiful images in his work.
Published by: X2025 Publishing, s.r.o. in 2026 and the Czech Gallery of Modern Art
Text: Václav Kopecký
Photo: Jaroslav Fian's private archive
Graphic design and layout: Karel Scherzer
Extent: 147 pages, 25x25 cm
1st edition
