Maria Magdalena
Collage. Reproduction and photography mounted on cardboard, 1958 .
Signed, dated, titled and inscribed 'Kolaz-Konfrontaz 1962' on the reverse. On paper. 22,7 : 28,2 cm (8,9 : 11,1 in), the full sheet. ‘My first perwar collages were still committed to Surrealism. I was quite young and then I was still interested in every fortuitous encounter and what it can do to one while working. [...] Then I grasped that not just engravings but also most reproductions and actually evrything regarded as material conceals an enormous poetic dynamic if processed in a particular way’ (Jiri Kolár, quoted in: Kolár, Exhib. cat. Städtische Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, 1980, n. p.). Consequently, Kolár has chosen for the present collage group portraits in various techniques and media, which have a slightly ornamental character due to the clarity of arrangement despite the seriousness of what is represented. [EH]