Maker/Artist
Toyen
Bohemian painter, draftsman, and illustrator, 1902-1980
Studied at the School of Fine Arts in Prague from 1919 to 1922. Formed a partnership with the painter Jindrich Štrský in 1922 which lasted until his death in 1942. Joined the Devětsil group in Prague, 1923. Lived in Paris 1925-1928, where she ceased relying on a Cubist-inspired vocabulary. She developed with Štrský a doctrine of Artificialism: an abstract style in which images and feelings are recorded on canvas via "color sensations." They exhibited their first series of Artificialist works in 1926 at the Galerie de l' Art Contemporain, Paris. Toyen later became a founding member of the Czech Surrealist group, and helped organize its first exhibition in 1935. During the Nazi occupation her work was banned and she went undergound until 1945. After 1947 she was an active participant in the Surrealist milieu in Paris.
