Čapek attended the School of Applied Arts in Prague from 1904 to 1910, where his teachers were Emanuel Dítě, Arnošt Hofbauer, Karel Mašek, Jan Preisler and Ladislav Šaloun. After graduating he attended the Académie Colarossi in Paris. He was a founding member of the SVU and The Stubborn Group. In the 1930s he left the Mánes association and joined the visual arts section of the Umělecká beseda. His oeuvre combined influences of French art —— particularly the post-Cézanne generation —— Cubist tendencies and —— after World War I —— influences of Civilism. He was one of the Czech artists who occupy an important place in European art. The visions expressed in his paintings and sculptures of the 1930s and ’40s demonstrate how powerful and tangible premonitions of evil can be in works of art. In Europe the theme was first broached by Pablo Picasso in his legendary painting Guernica (1937), or by Dali with his painting Premonition of Civil War (1936). It is a phenomenon we find among the Czech artists Jan Bauch, Emil Filla, František Muzika among many others.