Karel Nepraš (2 April 1932 – 5 April 2002) was a Czech sculptor, draughtsman, graphic artist and professor at Prague Academy. Already in the 1960s, Nepraš became one of the most prominent Czech artists thanks to his ability to master new materials, techniques and technologies and creatively exploit them.Ševeček L, Karel Nepraš and friends, 2007, p. 4 His original work has also been recognized abroad.Fernand Hazan (ed.), Nouveau dictionnaire de la sculpture moderne, Paris 1970, pp. 227–228Benezit: Dictionary of Artists (Volume 10: Müller - Pinchetti), en., Éditions Gründ, Paris 2006 Through playfulness, subversive irony and bitter humour, he has kept himself free from pathos, pretension and any ideological cliché.Pavla Pečinková, Nepraš in DOX, Revolver Revue 89, 2012, p. 220 Nepraš's work is often classified as part of the so-called Czech Grotesque,For example, Josef Kroutvor wrote: "The grotesque is an inner contradiction, a double consciousness, the reverse and the face of life. The outer manifestation does not correspond to the inner experience". Josef Kroutvor, Manifesto of the Czech Grotesque, in: Kroutvor J, Fernety, Torst, Prague 1998, pp. 301–305 which partly overlapped with New Figuration,Martina Vítková: Karel Nepraš - life and work, in: Martina Vítková, Markéta Korečková (eds.), 2020, pp. 22–33 but the term was rather a substitute for such notions as alienation, absurdity and manipulation, which were unacceptable to the then communist regime.Jaroslav Anděl, The Contexts of Karel Nepraš, in: Jaroslav Anděl (ed.), Karel Nepraš, 2012, p. 32 With the rapid deterioration of state cultural policy under normalization, the grotesque acted as a distinctly intellectual commentary on reality.Marie Klimešová, Grotesque and grotesqueness, in. 691 According to art historian Jan Kříž, there are only a few sculptors in the world who could so perfectly connect the tragicomedy of human existence with the tragicomedy of general history.Hvížďala K, Wernisch I, My dwarfs always have a snow maiden, Lidové noviny, Týden supplement, 15.12.1997, p. 76
The period of normalization he experienced in difficult existential conditions, without the possibility to exhibit and in seclusion. He received recognition again only after the fall of the communist regime, when he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. A number of prominent personalities emerged from the Karel Nepraš School Socha 1, such as the sculptors Paulina Skavova, Martina Hozová, Klára Klose and Markéta Korečková, the sculptors Karel Bartáček, Zdeněk Šmíd, Vít Novotný, Ján Macko and the painter MICL.Pavlína Pyšná, The Karel Nepraš School of Sculpture, in: Ševeček L, Karel Nepraš a přátelé, 2007, s. 68-72 In addition to teaching students, Nepraš devoted himself intensively to his own work and is considered one of the most original representatives of New Figuration.Morganová P, 2000, unpaginated
Life Karel Nepraš was born on 2 April 1932 in PragueŠeveček L, Karel Nepraš and friends, 2007, p. 38 into the family of a bank clerk. Thanks to his art teacher at the town school, who encouraged his interest in drawing and advised him, he saw several exhibitions before the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état.Karel Nepraš: Iron story, 1999, p. 13 In 1948–1951, he graduated from the Secondary Industrial Ceramic School in Prague, where Bedřich Dlouhý also studied. In 1952 he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in the sculpture studio of Prof. Jan Lauda, and in 1958 he graduated as an academic sculptor.Markéta Stará, in: Jaroslav Anděl (ed.), Karel Nepraš, 2012, pp. 244–258
Before the war, Jan Lauda was a leading representative of so-called social art and had excellent training (pupil of Jan Štursa, shared studio with Otto Gutfreund). He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and in 1951 he was awarded the State Prize of Klement Gottwald for his bust of V. I. Lenin.Jan Lauda, Horácká galerie Karel Nepraš was a prominent student of Lauda, and his professor actively protected him, giving him repeatedly excellent marks in sculpture. He also saved him from being expelled from Academy when Nepraš repeatedly failed exams in Marxism-Leninism and Lauda convinced the examining comrade to give him at least a C. At the end of his studies he defended Nepraš's diploma thesis - an unconventional monument to the pioneer of aeronautics E. Čihák.Jan Steklík, in. 15 From the practice of the ceramicist and the principles of the Lauda school on the necessity to maintain the solid construction of the sculpture, Nepraš took away the inclination towards a convex shape, which "is the vault that holds the space"Karel Nepraš, in: Halířová M, 1992, unpaginated
Šmidra group In the oppressive atmosphere of the communist regime of the 1950s, the general spying and the emphasis on teaching Marxism–Leninism and socialist realism at the Academy, personal friendships and private gatherings of students were more important than school. Nepraš and his friends were aware that they stood completely outside official art, and prank was a necessary common self-defence.Karel Nepraš: Iron story, 1999, p. 11
Together with his classmates Jan Koblasa, Bedřich Dlouhý and musicians Rudolf Komorous, Libor Pešek and Jan Klusák, he founded the Club (in the manner of English gentlemen's clubs), which prepared a joint Dadaist event of artists, actors and musicians Malmuzherciáda (abbreviated in English would be: PaintActMus-ade) in the Club of Unitarians (Dec. 19, 1954). Nepraš exhibited the painting Green Mother Destroying Her Child. The painter Ladislav Placatka and the composer Jan Bedřich also took part and a joint composition Eine kleine Dadamusik (with the phrases Duchaminulost, Duchapřítomnost, Duchabudoucnost) was performed.Karel Nepraš: Iron story, 1999, p. 9 After this event some left the "Club" and the remaining members - Karel Nepraš, Jan Koblasa, Bedřich Dlouhý and Rudolf Komorous continued to meet as Šmidra group"Šmidra" is a slightly derisive term for a policeman from a puppet play; in the case of the Šmidra group, it is a form of self-stylization of artists who felt marginalized under the communist regime (Jaroslav Vožniak joined in 1955).Jan Kříž, Šmidrové, Obelisk, Prague 1970 In 1955, Nepraš participated as a designer in the performance Two Ballets at Ledebur Gardens (Malá Strana), for which the libretto wrote Jan Koblasa.
In 1957 they prepared a one-day exhibition on Střelecký ostrov together with invited literary artists (Václav Havel, Jiří Paukert, Milena Tobolová) and professional musicians (Modern Jazz Quintet of Eugen Jegorov, Rudolf Dašek, Milan Kostohryz, etc. ) as a composed evening, with the presentation of private artworks.Jan Koblasa (ed.), Šmidrové, 2005, p. 34
The activities of the Šmidra group, in addition to regular meetings, recessional events and formalised rituals with fragmentary collaborative literary activities, continued after they finished studies at the Prague Academy. Nepraš brought a performative playful talent to the club and cultivated the scope of drawing. In 1958, the club, inspired by spontaneous idea of Bedřich Dlouhý formed "Šmidra brass band". None of the participants had a musical background (except Koblasa, who won a singing competition). Nepraš played the flugelhorn and was privately taught for about three months by a trumpet player from the conservatory.Karel Nepraš: Iron story, 1999, p. 25 Later he played the violin. Their joint performance was also a distinctive 1959 production of Arsonist's daughter by Josef Kajetán Tyl and a parody of the official rituals of the time - The Ceremonial Academy of the Šmidra group in memory of the poet Václav Svoboda Plumlovský at the Reduta Jazz Club in 1960 (with the participation of Hana Purkrábková, Aleš Veselý, Kateřina Černá, Čestmír Janošek, Jan Klusák, Petr Lampl, Bohumír Mráz). In the same year, the amateur film Šmidra's Magician's Lantern was made.
Out of the unrestrained fun arose a completely serious, but still absurdly tuned work, inspired by Kafka and Klíma and influenced by the contemporary inclination towards existentialism.Magdalena Juříková, Cheerfully Serious, Art+Antiques 7–8, 2012, pp. 8–13 The ten-year history of the "Šmidra group" was commemorated by an exhibition in Ostrov nad Ohří in 1965, prepared by the theoretician of the group Jan Kříž, the author of the general term "strangeness" for their works.Jan Kříž, Šmidrové, Ostrov nad Ohří, 1965Jan Kříž, Aesthetics of strangeness, Výtvarné umění 1, 1967, pp. 1–13 In 1968, the first Prague exhibition of the "Šmidra group" took place in Václav Špála Gallery,Jan Kříž, Šmidrové, Galerie Václava Špála, SČVU, Prague, 1968 later reprised in Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové.
As the political atmosphere relaxed and the need to devote themselves to their own work, activity of "Šmidra group" gradually diminished. "Šmidra group" briefly reunited in 1962 with the founding of the Paleta vlasti (Palette of the Fatherland) hockey club. In addition to Koblasa, Nepraš and Dlouhý, the founding members were Hugo Demartini, Theodor Pištěk, Josef Klimeš, Karel Kouba, Milan Stibůrek (the only hockey player, member of the Sparta B-team), Bohumil Němeček, Radek Venclík and Jan Vachuda. In the 1960s the Palette of the Fatherland club was active, among others, in the Baráčnická rychta. The Palette of the Fatherland amateur activities, dance parties and cabarets were at least as popular throughout the 1960s as the chats of Sklep Theatre in the 1970s. In 1992, a delegation of the club presented the Palette of the Fatherland Award to Václav Havel.Václav Havel a Paleta Vlasti, Knihovna VH, 2012
The reconstruction of the activities of the Šmidra group was made possible by Jan Koblasa, who published his diary entriesJan Koblasa, Záznamy z let padesátých a šedesátých, 2002, Vetus Via, Brno, 2002 and sent a questionnaire to living members in 2004–2005.Jan Kříž, Nepraš's "strangeness", in Jaroslav Anděl (ed.), Karel Nepraš, 2012, p. 76
Crusader School As an author of drawings for magazines, Nepraš met the artist Jan Steklík and in 1963, in the company of those meeting in the pub U Křižovníků (At Crusaders), they founded the Crusader School of pure humour without jokes,Bubinekrevolveru.cz/krizovnicka-skola-cisteho-humoru-bez-vtipu-jeji-dejiny Bubínek Revolveru: Veronika Tuckerová, Křižovnická škola čistého humoru bez vtipu a její dějiny where he and Steklík took turns as directors. In addition to artists (Naděžda Plíšková, Zbyšek Sion, Otakar Slavík, Zdeněk Beran, Rudolf Němec, Aleš Lamr, Olaf Hanel, Antonín Tomalík, etc. ) and photographers (Jiří Putta, Helena Wilsonová, Jan Ságl, Jaroslav Kořán, art historian Jan Kříž, Eugen Brikcius, Vladimír Borecký, Věra Jirousová, Josef Kroutvor, Karel Oujezdský, Paul Wilson, Andrej Stankovič, Petr Lampl, etc.), young poets from the circle of the magazine Workbooks for Young Literature (Petr Kabeš, Ivan Wernisch, Pavel Šrut) and members of the then cultural underground (Ivan Martin Jirous, Vratislav Brabenec, Jiří Němec, Dana Němcová, and others).Jiří Hůla, Inventory of the Crusader School, Revue Art IV, 2005, pp. 20-25 The free association of the Crusader School was a completely unique creative phenomenon, which, as a distinctive parallel to the Fluxus movement, connected everyday reality with art, with the ambition to enter the social or natural environment. It promoted the so-called aesthetics of "weirdness" and gave rise to the Czech visual grotesque.Ludvík Ševeček, Nepraš and Steklík with each other, 2014 Slavíková places the Crusader School among the neo-avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 1970s, which sought to cross the boundaries between life and art through play.Slavíková D, 2015, p. 8