Certified graphic print, 50 x 65 cm. Numbered, certificate, handmade Star Museum paper. Signed lower right Toyen. Blind embossed stamp: Shakespeare Arts LTD. 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 of Czech surrealism – although she spent most of her life in Paris. She was a free and original artist and woman in Czech and world art of the 20th century. She defied societal conventions with her bohemian lifestyle, and through her work, she opposed philistinism and hypocrisy in art and society. She refused to accept the then-prevailing concept of a woman's role and saw herself as equal to men, not only in her art but also in her personal life. Her work is characterized by originality and precise execution. Her lifelong friendship with the painter, writer, and photographer Jindřich Štyrský became very significant for her. Together, they joined the avant-garde association of the young Czech generation, the Umělecký svaz Devětsil (Artists' Association Devětsil).
Toyen lived for her art; avant-garde art was a means for her to free herself from the conventions of contemporary life. She was a free spirit 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.
