Bohuslav Reynek – Prints from the 1950s

Le Belvédère Cultural Center, Saint-Martin-d’Uriage (Isère)
1 February to 10 March 2013.
Exhibition extended to 24 March inclusive.

Exhibition organised by the Town of Saint-Martin-d’Uriage and produced by the Association Romarin – Les Amis de Suzanne Renaud et Bohuslav Reynek.

Curator: Annick Auzimour.

Silence in Czechoslovakia, recognition in the Dauphiné
A glimmer of hope in the long Bohemian winter that did not end until the Velvet Revolution. Le Belvédère in Saint-Martin-d’Uriage presents an artistic heritage preserved from one generation to the next and pays tribute to a great artist who lived in Grenoble between the wars before returning to Czechoslovakia with his Grenoble wife, the poet Suzanne Renaud, never to return.

The show features nearly 100 prints tracing a decade of Reynek’s artistic activity and illustrating the richness and variety of his engravings during that period — drypoints, etchings and clichés-verre — as well as his work with colour through the use of monotype, which makes each print unique. There are landscapes, rural scenes, animal motifs, Biblical themes and the artist’s proofs from the precious albums Job and Don Quichotte, which Grenoble residents could see before they were published in Czechoslovakia.

Documents, letters and articles published during exhibitions in Grenoble between 1950 and 1960, and the catalogue that came out on the occasion of this event, help put the roots of Reynek’s unbreakable ties with his friends in France in the context of their time. They also recall the recognition his graphic work obtained from Grenoble’s cultural milieu in his lifetime.

Illustrated catalogue. Bohuslav Reynek (1892-1971). Estampes des années cinquante [Bohuslav Reynek (1892-1971). Prints from the 1950s]. Grenoble, Romarin 2013. Texts by Annick Auzimour, Nathalie Servonnat-Favier and Olivier Félix-Faure. 56 p.