Zapletal, Alois /

Resting by the river

1933

oil, canvas, 150 × 100 cm

purchased 2019 with the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture

This is an authentic and original collection of works by the painter Alois Zapletal, showcasing the full range of his oeuvre – from religious themes to social topics, still lifes and portraits – and also, despite the collection’s compact size, managing to represent the key periods in Zapletal’s career between 1920 and 1940. The collection was taken direct from the painter’s posthumous estate; the opportunity to select works from his studio made it possible to assemble a comprehensive collection of items from Zapletal’s most important creative periods in order to give representative coverage of his entire oeuvre.

Zapletal’s work encompassed a number of different styles. After the First World War he painted in the spirit of the (already fading) symbolist movement, creating mainly figural compositions with religious themes; he also returned to these themes in his later creative period with works such as Golgotha (1935) or Christ (1938). He then gradually integrated elements of the Neue Sachlichkeit into his work, especially in his paintings with social themes. Among his key works of this period – which are comparable with similar works in Czech social art and also reveal the influence of the Neue Sachlichkeit – is the Ostrava Trilogy, from which two paintings (Poverty in Ostrava and Sadness in Ostrava, 1922) were acquired by the gallery in 2015. Another important canvas from this period is Ostrava / Red Madonna, which was widely exhibited at the time. Much of Zapletal’s work consists of canvases expressing poetic moods – such as Under the Apple Tree (1924) and By the Water (1933) – or depicting the people and landscapes of the Ostrava region (We Plough After the Harvest, 1941–1942, Accordion Player with Friends, undated). Alois Zapletal painted a number of self-portraits, exemplified by a work from 1937. He also painted his own face in the canvas Saint Sebastian (undated). In addition to their distinctive subjects and forms, most of the works in the collection are large in size – which is not an entirely typical feature of Zapletal’s oeuvre.

ZAPLETAL ALOIS

(1886, Kroměříž – 1943, Ostrava-Mariánské Hory) Painter (canvas and frescos). In 1900–1902 Zapletal attended the industrial college in Přerov, and then from 1907 to 1912 he studied at the Academy of Decorative Arts in Vienna (under Anton von Kenner and Bertold Löffler). From 1908 to 1912 he was also a student at the art school of the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry in Vienna. During his Vienna studies he created posters for the Tlusty-Knöpflemacher company (1910–1912) and a poster for the city’s first aviation exhibition (1912). In 1922–1923 he undertook study visits to Munich (1922) and Berlin (1923), which may have inspired him to adopt the principles of the Neue Sachlichkeit. After completing his studies, he settled in Ostrava. He helped to establish a vocational college in the city’s Mariánské Hory district, where he himself taught (1924–1934). He was a member of the Hodonín Association of Moravian Artists and a co-founder of the Moravian-Silesian Association of Artists in Ostrava (founded 1926). His work includes a number of religious commissions; he painted altarpieces (depicting e.g. St. Sebastian in Kroměříž or St. Joseph in Rudoltovice) as well as frescos (for churches in Všechovice, Radějov, Hlučín, Vratimov and Moravská Ostrava). He also created sgraffito ornamentation for façades or frescos in privately-owned buildings – such as the villa belonging to the architect František Grossmann in Moravská Ostrava.