František Kubka Book order

The Jindřich Waldes collection was confiscated and placed in the care of the State Collection of Old Masters in Prague in 1939. Although Waldes' heirs requested restitution of the collection in 1946, their claims were not settled before Feb. 1948 and the Waldes Collection was incorporated into the collections of the National Gallery in Prague. In 1996 the collection was returned to the heirs of Jindřich Waldes. In that same year Jiří Waldes, on behalf of the Waldes family, donated some of the works from the collection to the National Gallery in Prague in memory of his father.

Written between 1907 and 1913, and first published in Prague in 1923, this book by one of the founders of abstraction is a major contribution to 20th-century art theory. It is divided into three parts: a general overview of the history of art, based on the concern for forms; an analysis of the language of art and its meaning; and speculative arguments on what makes up a creative individual.

"Pour l'artiste, la seule chose qui compte, c'est la démarche de la création dans laquelle les deux mondes - l'abstrait et le réel - s'affrontent".