Lot Essay
Between 1927 and 1930 Kupka underwent a great personal and artistic crisis. His health turned poor, and his 1926 album of woodcuts, Quatre Histoires de Blanc et Noir, was a critical and financial failure. In his anxiety he ceased to exhibit at the Salon des Indépendants between 1926 and 1933.
During this period Kupka began a series of paintings based on machinery, which may have served as a metaphor for the impersonal forces he felt oppressing him. By 1930 the circular and angular forms of these paintings assumed a more abstract character, and in the present work, he has integrated the softer, organic forms of his earlier pictures. The resultant vocabulary of forms enriched his painting throughout the 1930s.
During this period Kupka began a series of paintings based on machinery, which may have served as a metaphor for the impersonal forces he felt oppressing him. By 1930 the circular and angular forms of these paintings assumed a more abstract character, and in the present work, he has integrated the softer, organic forms of his earlier pictures. The resultant vocabulary of forms enriched his painting throughout the 1930s.