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Lot Essay
The painter, printmaker, caricaturist, poet and writer Josef Capek (1877-1945) was one of the pre-eminent Czech artists of his time, working in a Cubist and later Expressionist style of his own, influenced by the French and German avant-garde as much as by the folk art of his country. As a tireless and courageous opponent of National Socialism, his writings and caricatures proved tragically prophetic. Only two months after Hitler had come to power, Capek under the sarcastic title DEUTSCHLAND ERWACHE! ('Wake up, Germany!') published the image of a shining swastika, rising above an endless field of graves. As a foreign enemy of the state, Josef Capek was interned and died on 12 April 1945 in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen of typhus - three days before the liberation of the camp.
Capek's preferred printmaking technique in the years between 1915 -1920 was the linocut, and although some of his prints were published in various art magazines, both in Czechoslovakia and in Germany, they are now extremely hard to find. It is hence very rare for an entire group of impressions, such as the present one, to come to the market.
Capek's preferred printmaking technique in the years between 1915 -1920 was the linocut, and although some of his prints were published in various art magazines, both in Czechoslovakia and in Germany, they are now extremely hard to find. It is hence very rare for an entire group of impressions, such as the present one, to come to the market.