Prague - František Kupka as a painter was not appreciated very much during his lifetime, certainly not as much as his paintings are these days. And the prices abstract art lovers are willing to pay now increase year by year.
In a Prague auction on Wednesday his painting En Degrades/Verticals painted in 1935 was sold for CZK 22 million. It is the second highest price ever paid for a Czech painter's work in an auction.
But the record price of CZK 22.1 million went for another Kupka's piece - Elevation in 2007.
Two years ago Kupka's painting called Abstract Composition was sold for CZK 13.4 million, which was a somewhat unusually high price, since no one before was willing to pay for Kupka's art more than CZK 5 million.
Louis Carre, an owner of a Paris gallery, is the lucky buyer of the En Degrades/Verticals painting.
The economic downturn seems not to deter private art collectors from investing in art. On Monday this week a painting by a surrealist painter Toyen called The Sleeper was sold for CZK 20 million.
Poor during his lifetime
František Kupka pioneered the abstract art movement and orphic cubism (orphism). Kupka's abstract works arose from a base of realism but later evolved into pure abstract art.
Kupka was born in Opočno in eastern Bohemia in 1871. He studied at the Prague Art Academy and later in Vienna. There he became involved in eastern philosophy. In 1894 he moved to Paris where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
To earn some pocket money he illustrated books and posters and made satirical drawings for newspapers and magazines. In painitng his style became increasingly abstract and soon he found himself exploring the relationship between music and painting called orphism.
Kupka's paintings did not earn him enough money, so his friend and art lover Jindřich Waldes often bought his work to support the artist. Kupka died in Puteaux, France in 1957.
