Vlasta Vostřebalová Fischerová (1898–1963). Between Social Art and Magical Realism

The painting and drawing work of Vlasta Vostřebalová Fischerová (1898-1963) was confined to an active creative period of just under twenty years, but in the Czech interwar scene this work represented some of the most distinct examples of ‘new realism’. The artist drew on the epic drama in the Wolkerian stream of proletarian art and with a large dose of imagination and an unusually form of poetics managed to capture human alienation and the extreme circumstances of modern life. Her work mixes everyday themes with fantastical poetics and an acute grotesqueness. The social cri de coeur of many of her works is balanced on the other hand by intimacy. The internal and in places almost hallucinatory aspect of her work was influenced also by her private life: a short, but not very happy marriage to the important Czech writer and translator Otokar Fischer. In addition to paintings and drawings, the book presents the artist’s extensive correspondence with Fischer and focuses on Vlasta Vostřebalová Fischerová’s never before studied work in the field of architecture.