Karel Malich
The sculptor, painter, and graphic artist Karel Malich died 24 October at the age of ninety-five. Malich, one of the most original Czech artists of the twentieth century, was a visionary and a pioneer of new forms of expression. His art, characterised by many things, including pastels and wire sculptures, enjoyed success at home in the Czech Republic as well as abroad. The Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Martin-Gropius-Bau and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in Berlin, the Ludwig Museum Koblenz, the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, and the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York are just a few of the prestigious institutions where his work has been shown.
Karel Malich was born on 18 October 1924 in Holice, Czechoslovakia, and studied art education an aesthetics at the Charles University Faculty of Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. His first solo exhibition was in 1963 at the House of Culture in Vysoké Mýto. In that same year he co-founded the art group Křižovatka / Crossroads, whose members included Jiří Kolář, Běla Kolářová, Zdeněk Sýkora, and Otakar Slavík to name but a few. Malich’s art gradually started to make its way abroad in the second half of the 1960s – his Black and White Sculpture was selected for the Sculpture from Twenty Nations exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 1967; his works were shown with those of Jiří John, Zdena Fibichová, and Jiří Kolář at the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1970; and in that same year Malich made the bronze signing table and a model of the Earth for the Expo ’70 in Osaka. In 1979 to 1980 he wrote his poetic prose From That Time to That Time Now, a part of which was later recorded by Jiří Lábus for a CD produced in conjunction with the retrospective Malich exhibition held at the Prague Castle Riding School in 2013. This exhibition brought together three hundred works made by this artist over the course of the previous fifty years – from his famous reliefs, objects, and pastels to an extensive series of his works that had never been shown before. The exhibition was seen by more than 35,000 people.
Karel Malich was born on 18 October 1924 in Holice, Czechoslovakia, and studied art education an aesthetics at the Charles University Faculty of Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. His first solo exhibition was in 1963 at the House of Culture in Vysoké Mýto. In that same year he co-founded the art group Křižovatka / Crossroads, whose members included Jiří Kolář, Běla Kolářová, Zdeněk Sýkora, and Otakar Slavík to name but a few. Malich’s art gradually started to make its way abroad in the second half of the 1960s – his Black and White Sculpture was selected for the Sculpture from Twenty Nations exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 1967; his works were shown with those of Jiří John, Zdena Fibichová, and Jiří Kolář at the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1970; and in that same year Malich made the bronze signing table and a model of the Earth for the Expo ’70 in Osaka. In 1979 to 1980 he wrote his poetic prose From That Time to That Time Now, a part of which was later recorded by Jiří Lábus for a CD produced in conjunction with the retrospective Malich exhibition held at the Prague Castle Riding School in 2013. This exhibition brought together three hundred works made by this artist over the course of the previous fifty years – from his famous reliefs, objects, and pastels to an extensive series of his works that had never been shown before. The exhibition was seen by more than 35,000 people.
-
Graphic Works
Curriculum Vitae
- Primary school pupil in Holice
- Moves with his parents from Staré Holice to a house near the church in Holice
- Secondary school student in Pardubice
- Forced industrial labourer at Junkerswerke, Dvůr Králové
- Studies “drawing professorship” – art education and aesthetics at Charles University’s Faculty of Education in Prague under professors Cyril Bouda, Martin Salcman, Karel Lidický and František Kovárna; the student dormitory on Haštalská Street is his temporary residence
- Returns to Holice, where he works at Batana, a shoe company
- Accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, to the fourth year of special courses led by Professor Vladimír Silovský; from now on Malich lives and works in Prague
- Graduates from the academy and marries Dagmar Žižková
- Starts to exhibit at the Hollar Association of Czech Graphic Artists
- Commences his mandatory military service at a cavalry regiment in České Budějovice; discharged in 1955
- Divorces and starts to make a living from art work, mainly as an illustrator and graphic designer
- Marries Hana Hrochová
- Becomes a regular member of the Hollar Association of Czech Graphic Artists. Represented at the exhibition Umění mladých výtvarníků Československa (The Art of Czechoslovakia’s Young Artists) and in addition to prints, drawings and graphic design, he starts to pursue painting
- Gets a studio and flat on Nitranská Street in Prague-Vinohrady
- Exhibits together with the art group Proměna (Transformation), which he co-founded
- Attends a trip with the Union of Czechoslovak Visual Artists to the Warsaw Autumn exhibition, during which he visits a modern art museum in Łódź. On the way he befriends poets Jiří Kolář and Josef Hiršal, whom he goes on to regularly meet at Café Slavia together with other notable figures in Czech culture
- Karel and Hana Malich have a daughter, Kateřina
- Karel Malich’s father dies. This event affects the painter’s work and causes him to move away from the Tachist and Informel motifs of the gouache series Tracks and Traces and the series Figures, and towards a personal, lyrical interpretation of geometry
- Creates white and black reliefs, sculptures and geometrical drawings
- First solo exhibition at the cultural centre in Vysoké Mýto
- Křižovatka (Crossroads) art group established
- Designs buildings in a storm, projects for diverting lightning to sea currents
- Reliefs and sculptures – Corridors
- Křižovatka exhibitions features Karel Malich (reliefs), Vladimír Burda, Richard Fremund, Běla Kolářová, Jiří Kolář, Pavla Mautnerová, Vladislav Mirvald and Zdeněk Sýkora; Jiří Padrta becomes the theory spokesperson for the group
- Malich also presents his reliefs at the Umělecká beseda exhibition at Prague’s Mánes gallery; he exhibits his drawings, gouaches and collages in a solo exhibition at Prague’s Hollar gallery, with a study written by Jiří Padrta
- In February Ludmila Vachtová presents Malich’s reliefs, fine art sculptures and drawings at the exhibition hall on Karlovo náměstí in Prague, with a study written by Jiří Padrta for the exhibition catalogue. The exhibition becomes an important event not only in the development of Malich’s oeuvre, but for Czech art of that period. The success of the exhibition is so evident, it was even praised by official Czech cultural circles, naming it the year’s best Union of Czechoslovak Visual Artists exhibition
- In March he exhibits reliefs and sculptures at the Constructivist Tendencies exhibition at Benedikt Rejt Gallery in Louny
- In April he exhibits collages from 1962–1964 at the Obraz a písmo (Picture and Letter) exhibition at Prague’s Václav Špála Gallery. Jiří Padrta writes a study for the exhibition. That same year Paderta writes an article in Výtvarné umění entitled Constructivist Tendencies, in which he devotes special attention to Karel Malich and his work
- Studies cities for a police-free state where it is impossible to shoot or take cover
- Studies underwater cities and a cosmic city, studies cities on shore breakers and in the desert
- First suspended Corridor (currently owned by Erste Bank)
- First Plexiglas sculptures and open metal structures on the dematerialisation of sculpture
- Malich’s Black and White Sculpture is selected for the exhibition Sculpture from Twenty Nations at the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art in New York. The artist visits the city for the event
- Attends the sculpture symposium in Hořice (Jičín)
- Participates in the Klub konkrétistů (Concretists’ Club) exhibition held at the Vysočina Regional Art Gallery in Jihlava and an expanded group exhibition of Křižovatka titled Nová citlivost (New Sensitivity) at the Brno House of Arts, Regional Art Gallery in Karlovy Vary and the Mánes in Prague
- Sculptures, architecture projects
- Visits the United States in the autumn: New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
- Vladimír Burda’s interview with Karel Malich is published in Listy on 19 December
- Set of etchings and screenprints featuring motifs of surfaces and lines
- Výtvarné umění publishes Jiří Padrta’s extensive study devoted to Karel Malich
- Exhibits in the Czechoslovak pavilion at the Venice Biennial with Jiří John, Zdena Fibichová and Jiří Kolář
- Creates a bronze signing table and a model of the Earth on a cube for the Czechoslovak exhibition at Expo ‘70 in Osaka, Japan
- Gets a flat at the housing estate in Prague-Kobylisy
- Exhibition of Malich’s sculptures and projects opens at the Benedikt Rejt Gallery in Louny. The exhibition is organised by Jan Sekera
- Malich’s works are exhibited by German curators Dieter Mahlow and Hans-Peter Riese at the exhibition Konstruktive Kunst aus der Tschechoslowakei at Galerie im Erker, St. Gallen, Switzerland
- In the summer he and Zdeněk Sýkora travel to southern Bohemia for an open-air painting course as part of Sýkora’s programme at Charles University’s Faculty of Education in Prague
- Malich’s array of studies of energy in space lays the groundwork for reflections on the tension of the visible and invisible applied in the sculpture Another Beer?
- Moves from the studio in Vinohrady to a new house in a colony of fine artists in Prague-Podolí
- By analysing the relationships of the see-er and the seen, he has visions, discovers the inner light and penetrates layers in space and the state of existence shown in the sculptures Inner Light and Crack in Space
- Starts to write his prose poetry Od tenkrát do teď tenkrát (From That Time to That Time Now); he completes it the following year
- Pastel and tempera period – records of inner visions
- Ban on exhibiting Malich’s work ends, numerous exhibitions open in the former Czechoslovakia
- From 1980 he continues to develop the theme of the relationships between the see-er (see-ers) and the seen in his series of drawings and sculptures on the subject of Me and the Other(s), Behind the Table and Who(m) I Meet
- The Jazz Section publishes Karel Srp’s book dedicated to Karel Malich titled Vědomí a kosmické energie (Consciousness and Cosmic Energy)
- Malich’s sculptures are exhibited in Munich as part of the exhibition Acht Künstler aus Prag in München, arranged by Hans-Peter Riese
- Organised through the initiative of collectors of his works in Brno, an exhibition of Malich’s drawings is held at the Small Gallery at the University of Veterinary Sciences in November
- Exhibition of Malich’s new work at the National House of Vinohrady features his wire sculpture Landscape with Eternity
- In the autumn, a samizdat anthology titled Dech kosmu: práh věčna (The Breath of Cosmos: The Threshold of Eternity) devoted to Malich’s art and literature is published
- Meda Mládek presents Malich’s sculptures Landscape with Eternity and Inner Light II at the exhibition Expressiv at Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts in Vienna. The exhibition was brought to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. the following year
- Retrospective exhibition of Malich’s oeuvre is held at the Art Gallery in Karlovy Vary and travels to the regional galleries in Cheb and Roudnice nad Labem. The exhibition and catalogue are arranged by Karel Srp and Tomáš Vlček
- Retrospective exhibition of Malich’s oeuvre opens at the Palace of the Lords of Kunštát in Brno and continues to the East Bohemian Gallery in Pardubice. The exhibition texts are written by Hana Mandysová and Jiří Valoch
- Malich’s pastels are selected for the exhibition Magiciens de la terre at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris
- Meets and starts to work with gallery owner Zdeněk Sklenář in January, preparations start on the fine prints album Česká grafika I (Czech Prints I). Published by Zdeněk Sklenář in 1993, the album features Karel Malich, Václav Boštík, Milan Grygar and Zdeněk Sýkora
- Malich’s work is presented in a retrospective exhibition at City Gallery Prague’s House at the Stone Bell. The authors of the exhibition catalogue are Karel Srp and Tomáš Vlček
- Karel Malich is named a professor and appointed head of the Drawing – Object Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He remains at the academy until 1992
- Participates in the exhibition Reduktivismus: Abstraktion in Polen, Tschechoslowakei, Ungarn, 1950–1980 , museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien, Vienna; the Czech section is curated by Jana and Jiří Ševčík
- Malich’s pastels are selected with works by Rembrandt, Dalí, Klee, Picasso, Nolde, Miró, Chagall and others for Hans Heller and Hans Biesenbach’s book Die Nacht leuchtet wie der Tag: Bibel für junge Leute 1992, Verlag Moritz Diesterweg, Frankfurt, 1992, second edition: 1994, third edition: 1999
- In the early 1990s Malich creates pastels, records of inner visions that summarise the picture into powerful fields of colour and expressive, eventful shapes
- Malich’s drawings and paintings are presented together with Rudolf Steiner’s blackboard drawings at an exhibition in the Prague Castle Riding School; the study for the exhibition is written by Karel Srp and Jiří Ševčík
- Trigon publishes a book of Malich’s prose poetry Od tenkrát do teď tenkrát (From That Time to That Time Now)
- Karel and Hana Malich move from their home in Prague-Podolí to Prague-Uhříněves
- Represents contemporary Czech art at the Czech-Slovak pavilion at the 46th Venice Biennial, curator: Jiří Ševčík
- Extensive exhibition at Museum Fridericianum in Kassel and Kunsthalle Krems; exhibition catalogue authors: Karel Srp and Jiří Ševčík
- His mother, Anna Malichová, dies; creates a series of pastels and temperas named Mother
- New pastels, temperas and sculptures
- The Czech TV documentary series GEN features a programme on Karel Malich (directed by Jaroslav Brabec)
- Represented at the exhibition Die Sammlung, museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien, Vienna
- An exhibition titled Contrastes is held at Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris; Czech curator: Jan Sekera
- The first in a series of twelve Karel Malich solo exhibitions at the Galerie Zdeněk Sklenář, Smetanovo nábřeží, Prague, are held between 2003 and 2012
- On 20 September Karel Malich is made an honorary citizen of Holice
- Retrospective exhibition at the City Gallery Prague, curator: Karel Srp
- Retrospective exhibition titled Karel Malich is held at Olomouc Museum of Art, curator: Michal Soukup
- The Academic Research Centre of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague publishes a listing of wire sculptures titled Wires / Dráty written by Jiří Ševčík, Dagmar Svatošová, Eva Krátká and David Kulhánek
- Galerie Zdeněk Sklenář publishes a monograph titled Karel Malich by Karel Srp
- Wire sculptures at the Freeing the Line exhibition, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
- The Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic presents Karel Malich with the State Award for Fine Art
- First new Wall Sculptures
- Represented at the New Sensitivity exhibition at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Beijing
- Creates the pulpit, altar table and altarpiece for the New Brethren Evangelical Free Church in Litomyšl
- Joint exhibition of Karel Malich and Zdeněk Sýkora, Lines and Wires – A Dialogue, is held at Museum Kampa – Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation, Prague
- Hanging Sculptures at the exhibition On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century, Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York City
- Represented in the exhibition Museum der Wünsche, museum moderner kunst stiftung ludwig wien, Vienna
- Represented in the exhibition Verführung Freiheit. Kunst in Europa seit 1945, German Historical Museum, Berlín
- Illustrates a book of Wang Yi’s poetry, translated into Czech by Oldřich Král as Odvážné srdce píše vzletným štětcem
- Illustrates David Sehnal's new translation of Laozi into Czech
- Premiere of the film Prostě se to děje (It simply happens) – a cinematic portrait of Karel Malich directed by Martin Dostál
- Retrospective exhibition at Prague Castle Riding School (exhibition concept: Tomáš Vlček, Federico Díaz and Zdeněk Sklenář); critics hail it as “the event of the year”
- Přišedší odjinud (Arrived from Elsewhere), Petr Volf's interview with Karel Malich on his life and oeuvre, is published
- Audio book released featuring excerpts from Od tenkrát do teď tenkrát (From That Time to That Time Now) is read by actor Jiří Lábus
- Karel Malich Cosmic exhibition at Ludwig Museum Koblenz, curated by Beate Reifenscheid in conjunction with Galerie Zdeněk Sklenář
- Current work focuses on pastels, drawings, wall reliefs and hanging sculptures
- Recapitulates and completes several projects he had never finished from throughout his artistic career, primarily from the 60s and 70s
-
Exhibitions
-
Other Activities
-
Shop
-
Watch
Media
-
Related
* 18. 10. 1924, Holice v Čechách (at a house by the stream in Staré Holice, town in Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic) – † 24. 10. 2019, Prague
1931–1940
1931–1940