Where to See Emil Filla

To see Emil Filla's work, you could visit the Narodni Galerie in Prague. Other museums with Art Deco collections include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. You can also find collections at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia; and the Wolfsonian at Florida International University in Miami Beach. European museums with relevant holdings are the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Geffrye Museum in London; the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh; the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin; the MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Art in Vienna; and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg.

Emil Filla (1882^[2]-1953^[2]) was a Czech Cubist painter, sculptor, and graphic artist, active in the early 20th century. Prints, as a medium, have a long history, dating back to ancient Egypt and China. They became widespread in Europe after paper became readily available in the 14th century. Woodcuts served purposes ranging from book illustration to religious icons. Handmade prints were the primary method for image reproduction until the advent of photography in the mid-19th century. During the late 19th century, prints gained recognition as a significant artistic medium. Artists began signing and numbering their prints to distinguish original works from reproductions, and to control quality and edition sizes. This allowed artists to reach a wider audience due to the greater quantities and lower costs associated with printmaking. Dealers such as Julius Meier-Graefe, Ambroise Vollard, and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler recognised the value of prints and encouraged painters and sculptors to explore the medium.

Emil Filla (1882^[2]-1953^[2]) was a Czech Cubist painter, sculptor, and graphic artist. He is important because of his role in integrating literature and mythology with contemporary art. Filla's work moved away from purely biblical motifs or private mythologies, reaching back to romantic sources, similar to Eugène Delacroix. This re-adoption of literary subject matter, combined with the formal demands of modern art, is a significant contribution. He was a member of Die Brücke, a group of German expressionist artists, and his work shows the influence of Expressionism. Expressionism stresses the subjective and creative element in artistic activity. Filla's work is part of the artistic and literary avant-garde of the 20th century. His paintings and sculptures are valued for their synthesis of intellectual and artistic ideas, reflecting a broader movement in modern art to reintegrate the figurative with literature.

The techniques used by an artist involve both material and intellectual elements. Technique includes resourcefulness, the ability to utilise certain means, to foresee effects, and a feeling for compatibility. The problem of surface treatment in painting has existed for a long time. Renaissance artists exploited their materials and tools to create realistic illusions. They aimed to bring to life colour and contour, plane and line, and their directional values. The Impressionists rediscovered colour and light as essential components in painting. They sought to bring colours to their elementary intensity, fusing them into light through the juxtaposition of pure-colour values or by breaking tones. Some artists have experimented with new materials such as plastics, including oil on rhodoid and Plexiglas. They have tried industrial lacquers and oil pigments on transparent sheets. To prevent colours from peeling, they scratched fine lines into the plastic, filling them with oil paint. They also painted on both sides of the sheets to create spatial relationships using receding and advancing colours. A specific brush technique was needed for these new materials, leading to unexpected textures.

It is difficult to identify specific artists directly influenced by Emil Filla. The art world has become pluralistic, making it harder for any single artist or movement to dominate. Some observers have noted a move away from the dominance of Picasso, with younger artists seeking their own idioms. They respect their elders, but feel compelled to explore new areas of pictorial expression. The Czech Cubist painter Filla was associated with German Expressionists like Emil Nolde, from whom Jan Müller inherited certain expressive devices. Müller readopted literary subject matter and realigned it with the formal exigencies of contemporary art. This re-emphasised an aspect of painting that had all but disappeared. In Finland, the Free Art School in Helsinki opened the way for an understanding of new problems in painting. A new generation of artists emerged, but a small gallery called Cheap Thrills served as a platform for artists who fell outside the categories Finnish exhibitions could accept.

Emil Filla's artistic development involved several influences. László Moholy-Nagy noted the importance of Rembrandt's drawings, particularly their emotional force and psychological depth. Moholy-Nagy also admired Vincent van Gogh's drawings, learning from their analytical nature and texture. He realised line drawings should express three-dimensional quality through line alone, and that a picture's quality comes from faithful use of the medium in new visual relationships, rather than illusionistic naturalism. Frantisek Kupka, a contemporary, was influenced by Josef Manes, whose work promoted Czech culture. Manes's style, characterised by melodical line and symbolic interpretation of nature, resonated with Kupka. Mikulás Ales, a follower of Manes, further influenced Kupka with his decorative talent and integration of figures into ornamental space. Kupka greatly admired Ales's work and his synthesis of music and the pictorial. Kupka's exposure to Czech folk art, particularly at the Jubilee Exhibition in Prague in 1891^[2], also shaped his artistic direction.

It is difficult to name one single work as Emil Filla's 'most famous'. He produced paintings and sculpture in a Cubo-Expressionist style, as well as many book illustrations and essays. He was a member of the group Osma (The Eight), and he helped to found the Group of Fine Artists. Filla is known for incorporating aspects of Cubism^[2] into his paintings, such as fragmentation of form and multiple perspectives. He was also interested in incorporating subject matter that reflected modern life and political concerns. He was involved in the Czech avant-garde movement in the early 20th century and was interned in the Buchenwald concentration camp during the Second World War. After the war, he continued to create art and teach at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

Emil Filla was associated with Cubism^[2], an influential art movement that began circa 1907^[2]-08. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque started it. Cubism rejected traditional representational art; it influenced many subsequent movements. Cubists abandoned conventions, such as creating illusions of depth from fixed viewpoints using linear perspective. Instead, they depicted subjects from multiple viewpoints. Each Cubist had their own style; however, their works often appear fragmented, composed of angles, planes, and geometric shapes. The name of the movement derives from this quality. Guillaume Apollinaire, a French writer and theorist, summarised Cubism in 1913 as the art of depicting new wholes with formal elements derived from conception rather than visual reality. Picasso stated that Cubism deals primarily with forms, and that drawing, design, and colour are understood as in all other schools.