Jiří Mrázek

Jiří Mrázek can best be described as something of an outlier working within lyrical abstraction. He was inspired by the landscape and nature, but also geometrical shapes. His wife was the painter Daisy Mrázková, a well known author of children’s books and, like him, a member of the UB 12 group.

Mrázek’s early encounter with art was thanks to his uncle, who made a living painting water colours. At grammar school Mrázek was taught by Pravoslav Kotík. An unsuccessful attempt to get into the Academy of Fine Arts was followed by several short courses (school of ceramics, Ukrainian Academy, State School of Graphic Design), after which he was finally admitted to the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. After graduating, he and his wife moved to Vysočina and he continued his studies only after the war. In the studio led by Josef Kaplický he met many classmates from the school of graphic design, such as Jiří John, Adriena Šimotová and others.

His friendship with Václav Boštík was very important to Mrázek’s career, and the two men held discussions with Jan Křížek in which they examined the development of modernist art and the tendencies of contemporary art of that time. They felt the need to create a “new style” and sought inspiration in historical antecedents. Under the influence of the theories of the French art historian Élie Faure on the archaic phases of artistic styles, they turned to Greek sculpture and Romanesque art. These tendencies culminated in 1943 and 1944 in the case of Mrázek, and even before the end of the war both his and Boštík’s output had shifted in the direction of abstraction.

In 1942 Mrázek created his important cycle of automatic watercolours without a unified theme, which lay an emphasis on the lines of stains and the structure of shape. One can make out parts of human or animal bodies dissolving into the coloured surfaces. The artist’s partiality for archaism begins to be combined with religious themes, to which he devoted himself during the war. In this respect Paul Klee’s paintings served as a model (e.g. Jonah, 1944). As far as form was concerned, Mrázek continued to simplify his shapes and this led him to smaller paintings with natural themes (Pavouk / Spider, 1946). At the end of the 1940s this tendency to reduction culminated in a period of ornamental abstraction with motifs taken from nature. According to Jaromír Zemin, in these works, characterised by contrasting surfaces and surface structures (Tichomoří / The Pacific, 1949; Klubko / Tangle, 1949; Slon / Elephant, 1949), Mrázek foreshadows Czech informel and lyrical abstraction.

During the 1950s, Mrázek’s output slowed down somewhat as he began working for the organisation Textiles Creation (later Ústav bytové kultury or Institute of Housing Culture) where he worked as a designer from 1950 to 1967. He achieved international success at the World Expo ‘58, at which he exhibited his textile designs and where, along with his colleagues, he won the top prize. During this phase of his life he was often outdoors, took trips with friends, and it was the landscape that became the central theme of his limited output from that period (Benecko, 1955).

At the end of the 1950s he allowed himself to be carried by the current of lyrical abstraction and in 1959 became a member of the newly created UB 12, formed from the circle of his many old friends (Václav Boštík, Jiří John, Adriena Šimotová, Václav Bartovský). The group held its first exhibition at the Galerie československého spisovatele (Czechoslovak Writer’s Gallery) (1962), but disagreement saw Mrázek and Boštík pull out. The two announced an exhibition of non-figurative work (Výstava D / Exhibition D at the Nová síň Gallery), which did not make them popular with the other members of UB 12, who were concerned by the exhibiting of abstract works due to the political situation at that time.

in 1964 Mrázek had a show at the Václav Špála Gallery, where he met Lee Freeman, an American art collector. Freeman became a patron of Mrázek’s, while Mrázek in turn introduced Freeman to many Czech artists that he included in his collection. In his paintings from the 1960s Mrázek continues to work on landscape-derived themes, into which the motif of the body gradually intrudes, sometimes with erotic overtones (Krajina – Žena / Landscape – Woman). In 1965 the figure disappears from his work and Mrázek moves over to abstraction. His paintings include a regular grid combined with linear curves and the motif of a meander.

One of major works was the cycle Pyramids from the 1980s. The subject matter arose randomly, with Mrázek dividing up the canvas and creating variations based on the contrast between the organic and geometric order. In addition to Pyramids he created the thematic cycles Mlýny / Mills and Hemžení / Swarming (1984).

Lines and smears feature large in the following decade and many paintings are created by a combined technique using string (Bez názvu / Untitled, 1994). The cycle of watercolours Rekonvalinky / Reconvalilies  (1996) then represents a direct route to the final stage in Mrázek’s work: clusters of colourful, expanding smears are placed within a grid. The network of squares filled with colours brings the artist’s oeuvre to an end. In these works Mrázek examines the relationship between colour tones (Křížem krážem / Crisscross, 2002; Čtverečky / Squares, 2003) and creates variations through the interchange of colours (Sexteto III-VI, 2005).

1980 tapiserie, zasedací sál OIRT
1973 dekorace interiéru, KD Novodvorská
1961 koberec, hotel International Praha, knihkupectví Svazu čs. spisovatelů
1953 oltář kostela Krista Krále, Ostrava (s. V. Boštíkem)
1948 mříž kostela sv. Martina, Martin
1943–1953 sakrální prostory (s arch. Jaroslavem Čermákem)

MRÁZEK, Jiří. Terra incognita (kat. výst.). Praha: Museum Kampa, 2016. NOVÁČKOVÁ, Zuzana. Jiří Mrázek. Diplomová práce na FF MUNI v Brně, 2012. MRÁZEK, Jiří. Čtverečky (kat. výst.). Praha: Museum Kampa, 2007. SLAVICKÁ, Milena; ŠETLÍK, Jiří. UB 12: studie, rozhovory, dokumenty. Praha: Gallery, 2006. MRÁZEK, Jiří. Čtverečky (kat. výst.). Praha: Gema Art; Klatovy: Galerie Klatovy – Klenová, 2002. MRÁZEK, Jiří. Práce na papíře 1992 – 96 (kat. výst.). Šumperk: Galerie Jiřího Jílka, 2000. SEDLÁČEK, Zbyněk. Jiří Mrázek (kat. výst.). Karlovy Vary: Galerie umění, 1999. SEDLÁČEK, Zbyněk (ed.). Jiří Mrázek: Práce 1940 – 1998 (kat. výst.). Praha: Gema Art, 1998. MRÁZEK, Jiří. An American Tribute. Long Grove: Willowbrook Press, 1993. MRÁZEK, Jiří. Obrazy a kresby (kat. výst.). Žďár n. Sázavou, 1993. MRÁZEK, Jiří. Dobývání tvaru (kat. výst.). Olomouc: Divadlo hudby, 1993. PÁNKOVÁ, Marcela. Jiří Mrázek (kat. výst.). Karlovy Vary: Galerie umění, 1988. MRÁZEK, Jiří. Obrazy a kresby z let 1943 – 83 (kat. výst.). Praha, 1983. MRÁZEK, Jiří. Jiří Mrázek (kat. výst.). Praha: Český fond výtvarných umění, 1964.

Jiří Mrázek (malíř). cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ji%C5%99%C3%AD_Mr%C3%A1zek_(mal%C3%AD%C5%99) (jim.) Zemřel malíř Jiří Mrázek. Lidové noviny, 2008, roč. 21, č. 60, s. 19, ISSN 0862-5921. VOLF, Petr. Boštík, Křížek, Mrázek. Reflex, 2004, roč. 15, č. 2, s. 47, ISSN 0862-6634. SEDLÁČEK, Zbyněk. Jiří Mrázek – Čtverečky, Daisy Mrázková: Výběr z díla. Ateliér, 2003, roč. 16, č. 2, s. 5, ISSN 1210-5236. MACHALICKÝ, Jiří. Jiří Mrázek. Ateliér, 1999, roč. 12, č. 3, s. 4, ISSN 1210-5236. HŮLA, Jiří. Jiří Mrázek – Klasik české lyrické abstrakce. Lidové noviny, 1998, roč. 11, č. 250, s. 12, ISSN 0862-5921. HŮLA, Jiří. Jiří Mrázek. Denní telegraf, 1997, roč. 6, č. 235, s. 13, ISSN 1210-8391.