Jan Matulka (1890–1972)
A native of Czechoslovakia, Matulka immigrated to New York in 1907, and became one of the pioneers of American modernist painting during the 1920s and 1930s. His ability to understand and assimilate avant garde developments in progressive painting put him in a small group of artists who advanced the principals of American Modernism during the first half of the 20th century.
When Jan Matulka began visiting Cape Ann in the 1920s, he brought along the influence of the major European art movements of the early 1900s. Moving easily from style to style, he was an early admirer of Pablo Picasso and cubism. Together with Arshile Gorky, he explored surrealism. During the 1920s and into the 1930s, he often spent summers painting and drawing in Gloucester, as did his friend Stuart Davis.
Matulka and Davis had a number of things in common besides painting. Both were New Yorkers, contributors to the leftist publication The Masses, and devotees of jazz. Their shared interest in maritime/fisheries motifs are most evident in their drawings which are replete with anchors, capstans, wharves and boats. In Matulka's Cape Ann paintings and gouaches, simplified forms are drenched in color. Among the subjects he favored are streetscapes, the waterfront and the granite quarries.
Jan Matulka (1890–1972)
A native of Czechoslovakia, Matulka immigrated to New York in 1907, and became one of the pioneers of American modernist painting during the 1920s and 1930s. His ability to understand and assimilate avant garde developments in progressive painting put him in a small group of artists who advanced the principals of American Modernism during the first half of the 20th century.
When Jan Matulka began visiting Cape Ann in the 1920s, he brought along the influence of the major European art movements of the early 1900s. Moving easily from style to style, he was an early admirer of Pablo Picasso and cubism. Together with Arshile Gorky, he explored surrealism. During the 1920s and into the 1930s, he often spent summers painting and drawing in Gloucester, as did his friend Stuart Davis.
Matulka and Davis had a number of things in common besides painting. Both were New Yorkers, contributors to the leftist publication The Masses, and devotees of jazz. Their shared interest in maritime/fisheries motifs are most evident in their drawings which are replete with anchors, capstans, wharves and boats. In Matulka's Cape Ann paintings and gouaches, simplified forms are drenched in color. Among the subjects he favored are streetscapes, the waterfront and the granite quarries.
Selected Works by Jan Matulka
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Rockport QuarryArtist: Jan Matulka Date of Work: c. 1929 Medium: Oil on canvas Accession Number: 2006.4.3 Credit Line: Gift of the estate of the artist, 2006 Collections: Land and Seascapes
At their best Matulka's paintings have a warm, playful feeling ... the paintings depict views of seaside houses and wharves, rocky shores, blue bays and chunky, toy-like boats. They are robustly painted in a style that looks like a marriage of folk art and Cubism. –Ken Johnson, Art in Review; Jan Matulka in The New York Times, May 25, 2006 |
View CAM's Rights and Reproduction policy
Selected Works by Jan Matulka
|
Rockport QuarryArtist: Jan Matulka Date of Work: c. 1929 Medium: Oil on canvas Accession Number: 2006.4.3 Credit Line: Gift of the estate of the artist, 2006 Collections: Land and Seascapes
At their best Matulka's paintings have a warm, playful feeling ... the paintings depict views of seaside houses and wharves, rocky shores, blue bays and chunky, toy-like boats. They are robustly painted in a style that looks like a marriage of folk art and Cubism. –Ken Johnson, Art in Review; Jan Matulka in The New York Times, May 25, 2006 |
View CAM's Rights and Reproduction policy