Jindřich Štyrský

André Breton (a gift from the artist in 1935, when Breton came to Prague; his estate sale: André Breton. 42, rue Fontaine, Calmels Cohen, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 14 April 2003, lot 4078)
Purchased at the above sale

London, New Burlington Galleries, The International Surrealist Exhibition, 1936, no. 338
Paris, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Exposition internationale du surréalisme, 1938, no. 206
Paris, Galerie Nina Dausset, Jindřich Štyrský, 1948, no. 30
Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne/Centre Georges Pompidou, André Breton, la beauté convulsive, 1991, illustrated in the catalogue
Prague, Galerie hlavního města Prahy (The City Gallery of Prague), Český Surrealismus, 1929-1953, 1996
Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Prague, Capitale secrète des avant-gardes, 1900-1938, 1997, no. 277, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne/Centre Georges Pompidou, La Révolution surréaliste, 2002, illustrated in the catalogue 
Dusseldorf, K20 Kuntsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Surrealismus 1919-1944: Dalí, Max Ernst, Magritte, Miró, Picasso..., 2002
Prague, Dům U Kamenného zvonu (Stone Bell House), Jindřich Štyrský (1899-1942), 2007
Berlin, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Against all reason. Paris-Prague Surrealism, 2009-10
Houston, Cullen Collection, 2011, no. 75, illustrated in the catalogue

Vítězlav Nezval (ed.) Surrealismus, Prague, 1936, n.p., illustrated 
Vítězlav Nezval, Karel Teige, Štyrský a Toyen, Brno, 1938, n.p., no. 64, illustrated
Lenka Bydžovská & Karel Srp, Jindřich Štyrský, Prague, 2007,  p. 254, no. 336, illustrated; pp. 257, 260, 262, discussed; p. 524, cited

The following condition report has been provided by Hamish Dewar Ltd, 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, London SW1Y 6BU: UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The unlined canvas is providing a secure and stable support on what certainly appears to be the original wooden stretcher. There are 2 canvas-maker's stamps on the reverse. Paint surface The paint surface has a dry unvarnished appearance and inspection under ultra-violet light shows no evidence of any retouching. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Painted in late 1934, Roots belongs to the small series of oils all with the same title - now in private and public collections including the National Gallery, Prague - completed the year Štyrský co-founded the Surrealist movement in Czechoslovakia. A gift from Štyrský to André Breton, the leader of the French Surrealist Group, it was shown at the first International Surrealist Exhibition organised by Breton and Roland Penrose in London in 1936 (fig. 1).

The inspiration for the series came to Štyrský while summering in 1934 in the Šumava hills in Bohemia, where he became fascinated by the tangles of tree roots on the forest floor (fig. 2). In his new-found interest in the role of illusion and hallucination in the creation of surreality, he saw in the roots the erotic, biomorphic forms that went on to populate his paintings. 

Removed from the Artificialism which had characterised Štyrský’s output thus far, Roots gives expression to André Breton’s claim that: ‘we shall be forced to admit, in fact, that everything creates and that the least object, to which no particular symbolic role is assigned, is able to represent anything.' (André Breton, Les vases communicants, 1932, translated by Mary Ann Caws and Geoffrey T. Harris, 1990, University of Nebraska Press).

The Czech avant-garde writer and fellow co-founder of the Czech Surrealists, Vítĕzslav Nezval, building on Breton’s ideas, even coined the phrase ‘hallucinatory object-illusions’ to describe Štyrský’s Roots paintings, thus adding to the Parisian Surrealist lexicon. Elaborating on his descriptor, Nezval wrote: ‘If the method in which they are painted permits the belief that they [the painted roots] could be replaced with real roots, and situated in a light that could be replaced one time with the light of dawn and another time with the light of the moon’s glow, if the possibility of their replacement with objects is conceivable, and if they are thus substitutes for objects and therefore “hallucination-objects”, all they convey lies in an illusion of which they are the source, an illusion that almost always has a highly stimulating erotic force. If the roots are not in every case – as they are in at least one – obviously lovers in an embrace, at the very least they are a pair of ravenous shears, carnivorous creatures of a sexual nature, in sum, “hybrid beings”.’ (Vítĕzslav Nezval, ‘První výstava surrealism v Praze’, 1935, in Manifesty, eseje a kritické projevy z let 1931-1941, ed. Milan Blahynka, Prague, 1974, p. 163). 

Štyrský’s Roots were interpreted in different ways by his fellow Czech Surrealists, as Nezval observed: ‘Nothing came more strongly to mind upon hearing André Breton’s words about the convulsive beauty that is magique circonstancielle, than that root set against the sky expressing the fleeting drama of the most intricate of embraces on a high and abandoned place. Although a number of interpretations may gradually have been found for the painting as several friends viewed it in my presence, differing only in terms of the number of embracing figures guessed at, the obvious, amorous meaning of the hallucinatory object remained intact.’ (Vítĕzslav Nezval, 'Úvodní slovo', in Vítĕzslav Nezval and Karel Teige, Štyrský a Toyen, Prague, 1938, p. 13).