Certified graphic print, 47.7 x 66.5 cm. Numbered, certificate, handmade BFK RIVES paper. Signed lower right Toyen. Embossed stamp: Solema s.p.a., Grafiart Edition. The number of the specific graphic print may differ from the one shown.
About the artist:
Toyen, born Marie Čermínová (1902 – 1980), was a Czech painter and graphic artist, one of the most significant figures in Czech Surrealism – although she spent most of her life in Paris. She was an independent and distinctive artist and woman in both Czech and world art of the 20th century. She defied societal conventions with her bohemian lifestyle, and her work stood against philistinism and hypocrisy in art and society. She refused to accept the prevailing notion of a woman's role and considered herself equal to men, not only in her art but also in her personal life. Her work is characterized by originality and precise execution. A lifelong friendship with the painter, writer, and photographer Jindřich Štyrský became very important to her. Together, they joined the avant-garde association of the young Czech generation, the Devětsil Art Union.
Toyen lived for her art; avant-garde art was a means for her to free herself from the conventions of life at the time. She was an independent personality even in her perception of sexuality, to which she was very open and unconventional. She began painting her erotic drawings and paintings in the second half of the 1920s, when Czech society considered such art to be decadent pornography.
