Koutský Václav 1907–1980

Still life with a pipe, 1940

canvas fixed on cardboard, frame, 18 × 33,5 cm, signed. LD Koutský 40

Still life with a pipe from 1940 painted by Václav Koutský ten years after graduating from Jakub Obrovsky's painting studio at the Academy Fine Arts in Prague. This relatively early work is an example of of Koutsky's talent as a painter and is also a testament to the emerging atmosphere of the pre-war years. The still-life depicts a detail of a scene with a pipe, tobacco and a small space. and smoking implements in a way that would be achieved today by zooming in of a camera. Concentrating on the depiction of a selected motif without of the environment or situation in which it is depicted, leads us to concentrated observation of the chosen subjects. A seemingly ordinary still life motif, like other works by Koutsky from this period, shows how simple and modest conditions in the society of the 1940s before the outbreak of the war prevailed. In 1943, Václav Koutský became a member of the Society of Artists Mánes. He had his first solo exhibition in 1957 at the gallery of the Czech Art Fund in Prague. In the post-war period he devoted himself to mostly landscape painting.