Toyen
Encyclopedia
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, draftsperson and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
and a member of the surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
movement.
Biography
From 1919 to 1920, she attended UMPRŮM (the School of Decorative Arts) in Prague. She worked closely with fellow Surrealist poetPoet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and artist Jindřich Štyrský
Jindrich Štyrský
Jindřich Štyrský was a Czech Surrealist painter, poet, editor, photographer, and graphic artist....
until his death. They joined the Devětsil
Devetsil
The Devětsil was an association of Czech avant-garde artists, founded in 1920 in Prague. From 1923 on there was also an active group in Brno. The movement discontinued its activities in 1930 ....
group in 1923 and exhibited with the group. In the early 1920s she travelled to Paris, and soon returned there with Štyrský. While living in Paris, the two founded an artistic alternative to Abstraction and Surrealism, which they dubbed Artificialism. They returned to Prague in 1928.
She referred to herself in the masculine case. Her sketches, book illustrations, and paintings were frequently erotic
Erotic art
Erotic art covers any artistic work that is intended to evoke erotic arousal or that depicts scenes of love-making. It includes paintings, engravings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, music and writing.-Definition:...
.
Toyen and Štyrský gradually grew more interested in Surrealism. After their associates Vítězslav Nezval
Vítezslav Nezval
Vítězslav Nezval was one of the most prolific avant-garde Czech writers in the first half of the twentieth century and a co-founder of the Surrealist movement in Czechoslovakia....
and Jindřich Honzl met with André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
in Paris, they founded the Czech Surrealist Group along with other artists, writers, and the composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Jaroslav Ježek
Jaroslav Ježek
Jaroslav Ježek was a Czech composer, pianist and conductor, author of jazz, classical, incidental and film music.- Life :...
.
Forced underground during the Nazi occupation and Second World War, she and her second artistic partner, Jindřich Heisler, fled to Paris before the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
(1948). She worked with Breton, Benjamin Péret
Benjamin Péret
Benjamin Péret was a French poet, Parisian Dadaist and a founder and central member of the French Surrealist movement with his avid use of Surrealist automatism.-Biography:...
, and other surrealists.
Scholarship
- Huebner, Karla Tonine. "Eroticism, Identity, and Cultural Context: Toyen and the Prague Avant-garde." Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2008.