Bauch Jan 1898–1995

Lovers and Roses, 1947

oil on canvas, frame, 51 × 66,5 cm, signed. PD Jan Bauch 47 Provenance: important collection of the owner from North Moravia. Professionally consulted by PhDr. Marie Dohnalová, PhDr. Jiří Machalický, PhDr. Rea Michalová, PhD.

From the expert statement of PhDr. Marie Dohnalová Jan Bauch, painter, sculptor, graphic artist and illustrator, was born on 16 November 1898 in Prague, and died there on 9 January 1995. He came from the carving family and in 1912-1914 he also learned the carving trade. Then he attended the School of Applied Arts in Prague for two years (prof. E. Dítě). In 1916-1918 he stayed on the front battlefields, after the war, in 1919, he re-entered the UMPRUM in Prague (prof. H. Brunner). In the years 1921 to 1924 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (prof. Max Švabinský), which he left in 1923. Three years later he was admitted to the to Mánes (1926) and the following year he made his first study trip to France. For Bauch's further artistic development, this and the subsequent stay in France were very important. In 1930 Jan Bauch exhibited together with with his friends, paintings imbued with poetry, in which a dreamlike vision was projected with reality. Bauch's landscape paintings were distinctly personal, as were his figurative works or his still lifes. Equally original were his intimate sculptural studies of female figures. Although Bauch temporarily left the Mánes association, he soon he returned to the Mánes. In 1932, Jan Bauch organized his first solo exhibition in the Aventine Attic in Prague. From 1933 onwards, he the artist also devoted himself to monumental work: his first panoramic paintings Prague from the mid-1930s. Soon afterwards, the painter's Another important subject in his work was the biblical theme. In 1937 Jan Bauch won the Grand Prix in Paris (Galerie V. Charpentier). A year later, together with Jan Lauda, he worked on the relief of the Ambush Czechoslovakia for the World's Fair in New York; from this period come also the stained glass windows for the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague and other monumental projects. The war years were reflected in Jan Bauch's work with an intensified dynamism of his artistic expression in views of Prague, biblical themes or in paintings of female nudes. The expressiveness of the painter's handwriting was emphasized by darkened to sombre colouring. A number of paintings from the end of the war portrait paintings. In 1946-1958 Jan Bauch worked at the University of Academy of Arts and Crafts in Prague. In the 1950s he continued painting panoramic views of Prague, but also devoted himself to the field of book illustration, designed tapestries and began to produce the first paintings inspired by the world of the circus. At the beginning of the 1960s he returned to sculpture again. to sculpture. Jan Bauch gradually became one of the most famous Czech painters, He took part in many exhibitions at home and abroad and received numerous awards. The artist's creative and exhibition activity was not limited by his advanced age, although the works from this period no longer reached the quality of the author's work from the first half of the 20th century. Lovers is a work that comes from the original, inherited collection from the Brno surroundings. Its founders acquired some of the works through the Brno collector and picture dealer, František Venera (1901-1979), who maintained regular contacts with the Czech avant-garde painting scene of the first half of the 20th century. He corresponded with a number of artists, regularly visited their studios and bought selected works, which he then and then sold them. He was at the birth of a number of important collections in Brno, of which let us mention, for example, the builder Václav Dvořák, JUDr. Josef Slezák Dvořáček (189-1967), the latter of whom established a relationship with Jan Bauch such close ties that the artist stayed with the family during World War II. Dvořáček family in Brno - Židenice for a longer but unspecified period of time, he stayed and worked there as well. (Jan Bauch confirmed this stay to me less than two years before his death during a personal, very emotional meeting.) In the collection Director Dvořáček's collection contained a number of the painter's key works from the war years. During his stay in Brno (but also later) Bauch was was also in regular contact with František Venus, who also lived in the Židenice district of Brno. The painting Lovers is one of the works that were acquired through Venus and has not changed hands since (except for inheritance shifts). Lovers is one of the characteristic, artistically highly valuable works by Jan Bauch, painted in the first half of the 1940s. The expressive handwriting is dominated by a dark colour palette, from the black background the whole and the details of the painting, which the painter emphasizes. White, red, green, blue and yellow tones, which the artist uses to model the bouquet in the right upper corner of the painting are reflected in the skin of the girl's body, clasped by the black background and merging with the only hinted silhouette of the lover. Wide, brush's vigorous rhythm is complemented by detailed, higher layers of paint. The tranquility of the intimate moment and period tension intertwine and evolve into a compelling, emotive expression in which one cannot help but notice a certain moment of surrender and wistful waiting. The painter's expression and the degree of his stylization remotely recall the lessons of Rouault's work, whose spirituality was Bauch's understandable and close to Bauch and from which he drew in the following stages of his of his work. There is no doubt about the authenticity of Jan Bauch's oil painting, Lovers (1941). the slightest doubt.