Jindřich Štyrský

Jindřich Štyrský (d. 1942), Czech painter, photographer, photomontagist, graphic designer, collagist, poet, Surrealist theorist and anarchist, born. He met and fell in love with the Surrealist artist, feminist and anarchist Toyen (Marie Čermínová), with whom he formed a close artistic collaboration for the rest of his life. Initially influenced by the Cubist, he gradually absorbed Surrealist tropes, becoming a member of the anarchist-influenced arts group Devětsil in 1923, and between 1928-29 the director of the Osvobozeného Divadla (Liberated Theatre), the group's drama wing, where he collaborated with Vítězslav Nezval (on a dance performance of his poetry collection 'Abeceda' (Alphabet)) among others, created stage designs (including for Jarry's 'Ubu Roi'). Štyrský and Toyen travelled to Paris in 1925, where they lived lived and worked together for three years. Štyrský's main activities at this time focused on his photography, his collages and photomontages, and his publications. His 'Erotika Revue' (1930–33) was illustrations by a wide range of well-known Czech artists, including Toyen, for whom the eroticisation of the world was a life-long theme, and who was one of the most uninhibited. She also contributed to the 6 volume series of erotic literature and illustration 'Edice 69' (Edition 69), which he founded in 1931. He also designed, often with Toyen, numerous book covers (he was one of the first to illustrate 'Maldoror') and also wrote studies of both Rimbaud and Marquis de Sade. [see also: 'Emilie Prichází Ke Mne Ve Snu' (Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream; 1933) in the final edition of 'Edice 69'] A member of the Spolku Výtvarných Umělců Mánes (the Association of Fine Artists) and associate member of the Surrealist group around André Breton and Paul Eluard, he and Toyen were founding members of the Skupiny Surrealistů v ČSR (Czech Surrealist Group) in Prague in 1934. In 1935, invited by the French Surrealists, Štyrský went back to Paris. There, he fell seriously ill, and had to return to Czechoslovakia. Štyrský and Toyan were forced underground during the Nazi occupation and Second World War, during which Surrealism as an underground movement flourished but during which Štyrský was also to die of a long-term heart condition. styrsky