Toyen (Marie Cerminova), (1902 – 1980), Circus, 1925 oil on canvas 90 x 90 cm si...

Toyen (Marie Cerminova), (1902 – 1980), Circus, 1925 oil on canvas 90 x 90 cm signed lower right: Toyen Provenance: – private collection of Toyen – private collection, Prague – private collection of a recognised Czech framer since 1946 – auction Prague, 23rd June 2011 (sold for then record-breaking 2.46m CZK) – significant private collection, Prague Exhibited: - L’art d’aujourd ?hui, La chambre syndicale et des Beaux arts, Paris, December 1925 (No. 223) - Styrsky et Toyen, Galerii d’Art contemporain,135 Boulevard Raspail, 27. 11.–10. 12. 1926 (No. 48) Publicated: – Karel Srp, Magicky vek (The Magic Age) Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery, Praha 2021, reproduced on the front cover and p. 5, 6,1 4, 17 The present work is one of the most important and beautiful works the painter ever created, attributed significant value by Toyen herself. In many ways, it reflects both its age and Toyen’s painterly approach during her first trip to Paris. The importance of this work is also evidenced by its recent inclusion and front cover feature in Karel Srp’s The Magic Age, a publication focused on Toyen and Styrsky’s early career in France. The world-renowned painter Toyen (born Marie Cerminova) was one of the most important and daring painters of the early 20th century avantgarde. As a founding member of the Surrealist Group in Czechoslovakia, she gave up her maiden name in 1922. Her now famous pseudonym was created by her friend and poet Josef Seifert during one of their visits to the National Cafe. Her acceptance of this new artistic name can be understood as both part of her lifelong struggle against authority and conventions, but also a denial of the traditional female role attributed to her. Her work is known for its brilliant originality and precision, as well as its ability to incite a strong sense of anxiety and anticipation. The objects she tackles open up the way into our subconscious, our dreams and fantasies. Her paintings question the audience, who feel compelled to search for answers even though there aren‘t any clear ones. Dr Karel Srp writes for the painting Circus, among others: In 1923, Toyen joined the artistic group Devetsil, which founded poetism, the Czech version of surrealism, which fused modern painting with poetry. Her most important years were spent beside the painter Jindrich Styrsky, who was her artistic partner for nearly twenty years. The two artists left for Paris together, where they founded a new artistic movement called artificialism in 1925. Artificialism was unique in many ways, particularly for being founded by two artists who had no desire for anyone else to join them. The works featured a reversed perspective that aimed to maximise one’s imagination. Artificialism strived for the identification of a painter with a poet and refused to approach painting as a simple game with forms and shapes. The focus was on poetry, which completed the space inbetween the paintings’ forms. The resulting paintings were abstract colourful compositions, with metamorphosing shapes, structures and thick layers of paint. In 1931, looking back at this time, Vitezslav Nezval concluded that Styrsky? a Toyen ‘felt compelled to reject convention and announce their own movement, all the while knowing they wouldn’t want to enslave themselves in the future.’ L’art d ?aujourd ?hui (Art Now, December 1925) In the second half of 1924 and the first half of 1925, Toyen connected back with her temporarily broken strain of work by painting Circus. It covered the temporary presence of neoprimitivism in her work, which she later tried to conceal by amending the order and timeline of her exhibited works at Galerii d’Art contemporain in December 1926. This painting was first exhibited at the renowned exhibition L’art d’aujourd ?hui in Paris, alongside her painting The Harbour (currently part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of Modern Art, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris). Both the paintings personify the transition from her work in the early 20s into the subsequent artificialism. In December 1925, Czech press summarised this as follows: ‘On Monday morning, an international exhibition of contemporary art was opened in Paris, inclusive of approximately 300 works of modern art, largely derived from Cubism. Czechoslovakia is represented by Sima, Styrsky a Toyen.’ The exhibition L’art d’aujourd ?hui was opened on 1st December 1926 at La chambre syndicale et des Beaux arts. It was an extraordinary event that brought together a number of international artists, largely living in Paris, but coming from 24 different countries. It was one of the largest exhibitions of its kind that took place in Paris in the interwar years, following the autumn exhibition La Peinture Surre?aliste at Galerii Pierre. It clearly showed a disdain for the well-known annual international exhibition of decorative arts in Paris. It took years to clearly identify this work. It transpired that the painting Circus, listed in the joint monograph of Toyen’s and Styrsky from 1938, was in fact originally titled Clowns by the artist, who also inscribed this on the canvas’s reverse. The first owner of this work was Toyen’s sister Zdena Svobodova?. For a long time, this work from the L’art d’aujourd ?hui exhibition was confused with the painting Circus Conrado, but this was clearly not aligned with its alleged monumental counterpiece The Harbour, which was exhibited at the exhibition. We can only deduce that the work exhibited at L’art d’aujourd ?hui was in fact a different work, more expressive of Toyen’s oeuvre around 1925. Given the clear visual resemblance to Harbour, it is likely a square painting with a circular composition, the title or year of which have not been preserved, which is the Circus. It is likely that Toyen wanted to showcase her best work and paintings that complimented each other at an exhibition of such an importance as L’art d’aujourd ?hui, attended even by Pablo Picasso. Circus The technique used in painting Circus is unique in its own right. Toyen placed all the action inside the red circular stage, full of references to jongleurs, trapezists, tightrope walkers, open fans and umbrellas, but completely devoid of any figures as such - these would be out of place at an exhibition devoted to abstraction. In Circus Conrado, the flurry of activity was captured on the surface of the circus’ stage, whereas in this work it is all captured within. Toyen was interested in circular compositions indebted to Renaissance throughout her entire career. The circular painting, later titled Circus is an extraordinarily well handled, with various visual planes interjecting, and fragmented objects approach abstraction. Toyen composed the painting like a children’s lego composed of intersecting diagonals, circles, orthogonal planes, horizontal and vertical lines. Circus is a smart composition of various parts, skilfluly put together to create an impressive whole. In the first half of the 1920s, Devetsil placed much emphasis on folk festivities, often deriving characters for their works from circus and comedia dell’arte. Acrobats and clowns were particularly popular as painterly subjects. During her trip to Paris, Toyen was mostly interested in the circus, variety shows and street performances of various comedians. The circus atmosphere offered young artists many opportunities for dramatic spatial compositions. Circus performers appeared in numerous works of art and literature. Jaroslav Seifert’s poem Miss Gada – Nigi, published in Disc (1923) and devoted to a trapeze artist is such an example: ‘...Miss Gada – Nigi sits on a trapeze/ and below in the sand, the clown falls asleep like a bird’. Karel Teige was also intrigued by trapeze artists: ‘The performance of trapeze artists is like a harmonious poem, one that denies gravity’. Other characters from comedia dell’arte enjoyed similar popularity during the first half of the 1920s. However, in the second half of the 1920s they were replaced by symbolic figures, personifying the painter, mankind’s destiny, as well as the future of Europe – this is well captured in Vi?te?zslav Nezval’s poetic work Acrobat, 1927 dedicated to Vladislav Vanc?ura, presumably as an answer to his introduction to Summer of Caprice. The paintings devoted to circus reflected Teige’s words: ‘clowns, dancers, acrobats, and tourists are poets of modern times’. Styrsky and Toyen’s interest in this subject was concluded by the paintings The Acrobat, 1925 and The Trapeze, 1926, both of which were included at their first joint public presentation at the Galerie d’art contemporain. The faith of the masterpiece Circus has been unknown for nearly fifty years. The painting was hidden away in a private collection of a framer, based in Prague, who acquired the work in 1946 when he was searching for old frames for his own painting in an antique store. This painting was offered to him by an art dealer, along with a number of other works, none of which he held in a high regard. The expertises by Dr Karel Srp and Professor Jaromir Zemina attached. Consulted with and authenticated by Dr Karel Srp,Professor Jaromir Zemina, Dr Jiri Machalicky, Aneta Kopecka and Vladimir Lekes. Restorer’s report written by Zora Grohmanova and Tomas Berger attached. A special thanks is due to the renowned art expert, author of Toyen’s catalogue raisonné, and a curator of Toyen’s exhibitions worldwide, Dr Karel Srp, who correctly recognised Circus and identi- fied it for posterity. The painting has been requested to the upcoming exhibition Grenzen in der Kunst. Tschechische Kunst in drei Generation at the prestigious Museum Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg between May 21, 2021 till August 15, 2021. This exhibition is orga- nised under the leadership of the art historian Dr Agnes Tieze, who previously curated the exhibition Oskar Kokoschka und die Prager Kulturszene that opened in Regensburg and subsequently toured to Prague‘s National Gallery between 2014–2015. Auction, Prague, Czech Republic