European Modern Art
The Quad Fine Art collection of European Modern paintings and works on paper includes many key Czech modernist artists, alongside important artists from Romania, Armenia, Spain, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway.
Among the artist presented here, many are not well known internationally but made significant contributions to the development of visual art and culture in the turbulent context of the 20th century. Among them is Peter Alma, one of the pioneers of the Dutch De Stijl movement. A Czech painter fascinated by colour and symbolism, Alois Bílek. An important Romanian avant-garde artist Max Herman Maxy exhibited with the Contimporanul Group and at the important Der Sturm Galleries in Berlin. A German artist and teacher Heinrich Kamps, found hardship during the Nazi rule as his art was labelled ‘Degenerate Art’. Another Czech artist, Jakub Obrovsky, was commissioned a statue for the 1932 Olympic Games exhibition in Los Angeles and awarded a bronze medal for his monumental bronze, Javelin Thrower. Léon Tutundjian who had to flee the Armenian genocide at the age of 17, settled in Paris in 1924 and participated in the Concrete Art movement, gaining recognition in the avant-garde circles. All of these artists were touched by both World Wars, by the horrors of totalitarian rule in Western and Eastern Europe, they travelled and fled, studied and became inspired, they advocated for their beliefs about the trajectory of contemporary art and about the political trajectory of the world.