Josef Capek

Hana and Karel Šulc, friends of the artist

Prague, Josef Čapek, 1946, no. 58
Prague, Vision, Existence, Truth, 1997, no. 51
Prague, The Municipal House, Josef Čapek: The Humblest Art, 2003-04, illustrated in the catalogue
Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham Museum of Art, Pražské noci / Prague Nights: Czech Modern Art from the Hascoe Collection, 2007

Jaroslav Slavík and Jiří Opelík, Josef Čapek, Prague, 1996, p. 205, no. 94, illustrated
Jiří Hlušička, The Hascoe Collection of Czech Modern Art, Prague, 2004, p. 27, mentioned; p. 188, no. P5, catalogued; pp. 91-92, pls. 76 & 77, illustrated

Original canvas. There are no signs of retouching visible under ultra-violet light. Overall this work is in good condition, clean and ready to hang.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Painted between 1917 and 1920, this arresting double-sided Cubo-Expressionist work powerfully displays Čapek's apocalyptic view of man's fate in the machine age, following Europe's rapid industrialisation and the horrors of the First World War. Both sides of the work show figures half man, half machine, bereft of their humanity. The figure of the sailor is portrayed as a metallic automaton, his face half human, half steel, who has become nothing more than a cog in the wheel of the naval war machine; the other side shows a figure clutching a dagger, his angular, plated face with a grille for a mouth wearing an expression of despair not unlike the figure in Munch's Scream. Interestingly - particularly in relation to the present work - it was Čapek who first coined the word 'robot', which first appeared in print in his brother Karel's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots, servile creatures who can be mistaken for humans. Though cognitive, they are conditioned to serve. At issue is whether the robots are being exploited, and the consequences of their treatment.

Phantomas and Sailor thus reflect the anxieties and preoccupations that pervaded the work of many artists across Europe during and after the First World War, and have a broad frame of reference - both stylistic and expressive - in paintings, sculpture, and literature of the time. Čapek's work is particularly resonant with ideas explored and expressed in the work of British artists, whether the Vorticists headed by Percy Wyndham-Lewis, David Bomberg, or Jacob Epstein. Epstein's most ambitious sculpture, Rock Drill, of 1913-14 (fig. 1), in particular, comes very close to Čapek's vision of the machine age, in which man is stripped of humanity and becomes part of the industrialised machine world. In this context, the Phantomas takes on a doubly ominous meaning: beyond just a nightmarish illusion or apparition, the title describes what man has already become – a phantom of his former self.

As a writer – he collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories, and wrote the utopian play Land of Many Names -  Čapek would certainly have read and been influenced by, among others, Georg Kaiser's famous trilogy of plays -Coral (1917), Gas I (1918), and Gas 2 (1920) - in which the German playwright painted an apocalyptic expressionist picture of modern civilization - hollow, mechanized, overcome with opportunistic greed, and rushing headlong towards its own destruction. Visually, the angular features of Phantomas are also reminiscent of Kubin's figure of Postava II of 1913-14 (fig. 2).

Fig. 1: Jacob Epstein, Rock Drill, 1915, pencil study, Tate Britain, London


Fig. 2: Otakar Kubin, Postava II, 1913-14, oil on canvas, Trade Fair Palace, Prague