(Chropyne/Moravia 1882–1953 Prague)
“Jeune fille pensive”, signed, dated Emil Filla 33, oil on canvas, 99.5 x 81 cm, framed

See:
Vojlech Lahoda, Emil Filla, Academia 2007, p. 340 there illustrated a study (watercolour) with the same motif from the same year 1933

Provenance:
Sotheby’s London, 19 October 1988, lot 257
Collection Arnold A. Saltzman (1916-2014), New York
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn, New York, label on the reverse with a description of the painting among other things:
“Purpose: Czech Art in the Velvet Revolution” (1990/91)
2002 Galerie Thomas, Munich where acquired by the present owner -
Private Collection Belgium

1898: studied at the Handelsakademie (school of commerce) in Brünn. 1902: worked in an insurance company. 1903: studied at the Academy in Prague under Professor Frank Thiele and Professor Vlaho Bukovac. 1907: member of the Osma artists’ association (the Eight). 1909: member of the Mánes artists’ association and the editorial board of Volné Smery magazine. 1911-1914: member of the Group of Visual Artists. Regularly spent time in Paris, where he met Picasso, Braque, Chagall, Gris, Jacob, Apollinaire and other important artists. 1914: returned to Paris, and after mobilisation, travelled on to Belgium and Holland with Jiri Kars. 1915: member of the Czech resistance movement, the Czech Maffia group, in Holland. 1917: participated in the publication of the first issue of De Stijl magazine and became acquainted with Mondrian and Theo von Doesburg. 1920 returned to Prague and recommenced his work with the Mánes artists’ association. Participated in important international exhibitions — 1925: International Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris; 1926: International Exhibition in Dresden, Venice, New York; 1930: International Exhibition in Carlsbad (with Gromaire, Ozenfant, Pascin, Utrillo etc.); 1937: with J. Capek and V. Špála in London.1932 participated in the important programme exhibition Poesie 32. As one of the most prominent influences on Czech culture and an active anti-fascist, he was arrested in 1939 and transported to the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps. In 1945, the first post-war exhibition held by the Mánes artists’ association was dedicated to his work.

Filla’s perspective on Cubism, and the relationship between Filla and Picasso, above all, is an exceptionally important topic in determining the nature of Czech visual art in the pre-war period. Vincenc Kramár characterises this art in an illuminating manner by saying that Filla’s “old yearnings were satiated in the Cubist world, and he used its forms to express himself as naturally as every painter of the previous centuries with the formal language of their time”. Indeed, Filla had a close relationship with Cubism, and over time he drew on the methods of analytical, synthetic and lyrical Cubism. By contrast to Picasso, Filla simultaneously viewed Cubism as the style of the era and a world view.
From: Tschechische Kunst der 20er + 30er Jahre, Avantgarde und Tradition, Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, 20 November 1988 – 29 January 1989, pp. 67–68.