Looking Through

The works of Josef Bolf, one of the key figures of contemporary Czech art, are characterized by a fragile combination of obsession, vulnerability and sensuality. His paintings reflect his early experience with the stylization of comics as well as his subsequent mastery of the technique of scratched-through Indian ink on a layer of wax. In his works, Bolf returns to the period of his childhood, which he persuasively confronts with harsh reality. Figures depicted against the background of a dehumanized city and confronted by the feelings of loneliness, failure and death, and the relationship between man and his environment in general, are the prevalent themes in his oeuvre. The work was presented at the artist’s exhibition A Premonition of Shadow (20 September 2019 – 5 January 2020, National Gallery Prague), and is reproduced in its catalogue (Otto M. Urban: A Premonition of Shadow, Prague 2019, p. 211). It was further presented at the exhibition 20th Century Art: A Different Perspective at Sotheby’s, London (5–11 November 2020, cat. no. 34).