Czech painter and ceramicist, born on 24 December 1906 in the Plzeň region, died on 26 November 1965 in Prague.
Life
Partly self-taught, Václav Tikal first painted as an amateur, a “Sunday painter”. From 1937 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, until the institution was closed during the war.
In the midst of the war he joined a circle of young artists, where he met Karel Teige and other Surrealists. After the Liberation he was one of the painters of the Ra group, with Josef Istler, Bohdan Lacina and Václav Zykmund. The group published its founding text and held its first group exhibition in 1947; it was officially banned in 1948.
After Teige’s death, Tikal withdrew for several years and almost stopped painting. From 1964 he took part in the international Phases movement, as did Josef Istler. In the last years of his life, solo exhibitions and his inclusion in exhibitions of modern art, in Czechoslovakia and abroad, brought him wider recognition.
The work
Tikal is one of the leading representatives of post-war Czech Surrealism; he is often likened to Salvador Dalí and Giorgio de Chirico. His landscapes express inner states, with a Romantic colouring. During and after the war they host cruel scenes and fragments of human bodies. Lyricism and a “nostalgia for the marvellous” run through the whole of his work.
The late works slide towards abstraction: imaginary and constructive elements combine geometry with natural forms. Tikal also designed models for ceramics and porcelain.
Exhibitions and collections
- National Gallery Prague: Surrealist Object (Head), 1945; Prometheus Unbound, 1945.
- “Surrealist Prelude”, Galerie Les Yeux Fertiles, 7 June to 6 July 2024: Sans titre, 1957, graphite drawing, 34 x 23 cm.
Looking back at their exhibitions
- Surrealist Prelude 2024