Irregular Forms: Creation

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Irregular Forms: Creation

Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), 1911
Paintings
Oil on canvas
45 1/8 × 45 3/4 × 2 3/4 in. (114.62 × 116.21 × 6.99 cm)
David E. Bright Bequest (M.67.25.10)
Currently on public view:
Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

Label

A pioneer of abstraction, František Kupka used color and form to express the spiritual themes of his art as early as 1910....
A pioneer of abstraction, František Kupka used color and form to express the spiritual themes of his art as early as 1910. He argued that properly composed colors could bring the viewer into contact with seemingly immaterial concepts, such as thought, spiritualism, and mysticism. Understanding color to have rhythmic qualities, Kupka explored the similarities between the composition of paintings and music.

In Irregular Forms: Creation, he conveys the materialization of order out of chaos through an effervescent accumulation of colorful forms, building and rising as in a musical crescendo. After arriving in Paris in 1896 Kupka became active among the artists living and working in the suburb of Puteaux, sharing ideas with Cubists, Futurists, and Fauves, such as Raymond Duchamp-Villon and his brother Jacques Villon.

Wall label, 2021.
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Bibliography

  • Donahue, Kenneth.  X, a Decade of Collecting:  1965-1975.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1975.
  • Donahue, Kenneth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art Handbook. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1977.
  • Donahue, Kenneth.  X, a Decade of Collecting:  1965-1975.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1975.
  • Donahue, Kenneth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art Handbook. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1977.
  • Powell III, Earl A., Robert Winter, and Stephanie Barron. The Robert O. Anderson Building. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1986.
  • Los Angeles County Museum of Art Members' Calendar 1990.  vol. 27-28, no. 12-1 (December, 1989-January, 1991).
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