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Artist or Maker: Kupka, Frantisek (1871-1957)

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Description: Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957)
Study for Peinture abstraite
signed 'Kupka' (lower left); stamped in red with the signature and stamped in purple with the studio stamp (on the reverse)
gouache, watercolour and collage on paper
14 x 9¼ in. (35.5 x 23.7 cm.)
Executed circa 1930

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Provenance: Mme A. Rotzler, Zurich.
Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1975.

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Published: J. Cassou & D. Fedit, Kupka, Stuttgart/Paris, 1964, no. 50 (illustrated).

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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

This drawing is a preparatory study for the oil painting Peinture Abstraite, 1930-1932, now in the Národní Gallery, Prague. In the latter painting, Kupka celebrates his enthusiasm for the foundation of the group known as Abstraction Création, of which he was part alongside Auguste Herbin, Theo Van Doesburg, Jean Hélion, Hans Arp, Albert Gleizes, Léon Tutundjian and Georges Valmier. Kupka described that his fellow artists 'claimed in an extraordinary way that one should not paint anything from reality, nor should one be representing something; one should make de l'art pur' (Kupka, in a letter to J. Waldes, dated 9 June 1931).