John Jiří 1923–1972

Overwintering, 1968

Signed in pencil bottom right Jiří John 1968, drypoint, handmade paper, 41 × 29,2 cm
Although Jiří John started with drawing and devoted his life to painting, it became printmaking became particularly significant to his work in the 1960s, thanks to which made him an internationally renowned artist. John used mostly drypoint technique with a distinctive handwriting characterized by short, densely-guided strokes, covering the entire surface of the scene, with no pronounced contrasts. Nature became the subject of John's prints, depicted, despite the initial inspiration of concrete scenes, as abstracted universe, resembling the geological strata of the earth with its various natural formations, rocks and crystals. A silent and poetic world without human presence, in which the life-giving power of the earth and nature plays a central role, John with a unique imagination far removed from his generational contemporaries. Read more more closely related to the artistic work of Václav Boštík, with whom he to the work of Josef Šíma, with whose work he had a long-standing friendship. John first became acquainted with at an exhibition at the Topič Salon in Prague in 1947. In the 1960s John had the opportunity to visit France several times and repeatedly met Šíma in person at his retrospective exhibition (1968) and in his Paris studio.