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FRANTA, painting, sculpture, Permanent artist of Galerie Capazza since 1992

“For what the object demands of me is not to be “understood” but felt. Being in front of this painting is like listening to a Bach fugue: the representation makes way for the expression. I keep coming back to those large spurts of colour that mark a new degree to franta’s expressionistic strength. There is no doubt in my mind that it was through passionate questioning of his painting in progress that he arrived at the sterile, golden space (material comfort, clear conscience, the wealth of the media, and so on) that towers arrogantly over the composition and stands in absolute contrast with the rest. His neighbour, Marc Chagall, whose garden he could see from his own, used to tell him that to make a painting you had to suffer. Franta did not need this lesson, for the origin of the aesthetic depth in his painting has always been in his power to express his subjectivity, which he can only do after much evidently painful effort. As for the questions, they will receive no more answer than Gaugin’s (“Where do we come from? Where are we going?”). Great artists always ask the same questions, just more strongly than ordinary mortals, and this is enough, for it rouses others from their numbness.

Just at there are superficial men, there are superficial works that seem literally superfluous, incapable of justifying their own existence (Schopenhauer would say: incapable of displaying the will that promotes them to being). They have no interiority because they contain nothing that suggests an internal necessity. Whereas every painting, drawing, wash-drawing, or sculpture of Franta’s seems shored up by an irrepressible international necessity. They contain awareness, and this awareness is deep due to their inner life. The relationship from self to self is then expressed in the dialectic of the reflected and the reflecting. This depth is externalized by a fundamental relationship to a world, if it is indeed true that awareness is at once related to the self and to a world. Let us say that, with Franta the relationship to the self conditions the relationship to the world, while being in the world awakens self-awareness. Thus we come closer to the depth of the aesthetic object in Franta’s work, which has the property of asserting itself as object, but also of subjectifying itself as a source of a world.

In front of a painting by Franta, I respond to a double call: it solicits both reflection, because it coherency justifies an objective knowledge, and feeling, for it does not wear itself thin with this knowledge and it provokes an emotion. He has of course only achieved his expressive subjectivity through the rigour and steadiness of his goal. We will not know “in whose name” nor “in the name of what” the unacceptable is wrought. But it is certainly thanks to artists like Franta asking the question more forcefully that we experience not hatred in the faceof this evi world but an ontological sensation. Through his art, the unacceptable invites us to revive the meaning of beings and their existence. Franta’s pictorial work thus inscribes itself within the legacy of the most lucid thinkers of his time, starting with Albert Camus.

“The aim of this essay”, wrote Albert Camus at the beginning of The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, “is to accept the reality of the moment that is the logical crime and specifically examine the justifications for it… An era which in the space of fifty years uproots, enslaves and kills close to seventy million individuals must be judged.” The agnostic Camus demonstrates that nihilism leads to murder. “Irrational and rational crimes also betray the

value brought to light by the movement of revolt. He who denies everything authorizes himself to kill.” Refusal of the unacceptable is also refusal of nihilism: fait in art vis necessarily faith in man. A capacity to produce beauty helps men to think that an infinitely good being does exist. Beyond all reasons for despair, from the camps to 11 September 2001, the actual works that evoke them bring us -because they are art- closer to God. I do not know if this is Franta’s intention, but the fact is there: his art, which for the most part draws its inspiration from the world’s misfortune, brings us an inestimable effect of beauty. The world that is revealed by the aesthetic object he creates, Franta sheds light on the real world and ourselves, and we realize that we needed this light. Like the poet in Terezin, from the depths of the night Franta will have witnessed the splendour of day”.

Extract from "From the Depths of the Night, Witness the Splendour of the Day" by Jean-Luc Chalumeau, translated by Gail de Courcy-Ireland

Biography

Franta was born in 1930 in Trebic, Moravia, Czechoslovakia. His father left Czechoslovakia to fight Hitler’s troops in France, and then went into the English army. His mother stayed behind with her two sons, and was arrested by the Gestapo.

Franta dreamed of becoming a racing cyclist. His first paintings were inspired by track cyclists.

From 1948 to 1952 Franta studied at the school of decorative arts in Brno, then from 1952-1958 continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. In 1956 a study trip to the Academia delle Belle Arti de Perugia in Italy paved the way for his first contact with contemporary art, but also the works of Giotto, Mantegna and Masaccio, among anothers.

There he met Jacqueline, his future wife.

He made up his mind to leave Czechloslovakia and smuggled himself into the West across the East Berlin border. He stayed in refugee camps before reaching France, where he met up with Jacqueline and married her.

He stared to work in painting and sculpture in Nice, where he settled.

In a highly unfavourable context for figuration, his work was strongly marked by expressionism and neo-realism.

He has travelled frequently to black Africa (Kenya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Gambia), the USA, Denmark, Holland, Japan, India, England, Spain, Mexico, Germany, Portugal, Greece and Turkey.

Public collections

France

Fonds Nationaux de l'Etat, Paris
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
La Villette -Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris
Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Paris
Musée de Peinture, Grenoble
Collection de la Ville, Grenoble
Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence
Fonds Régional pour l'Art Contemporain, Marseille
Musée Cantini, Marseille
Fondation Van Gogh, Arles
Fonds Régional pour l'Art Contemporain, Strasbourg

Musée d' 'Art Contemporain, Dunkerque

Fonds Régional pour l'Art Contemporain, Reims

Musée Chéret, Nice

Musée de la Castre, Cannes

Musée d'Art Moderne, Lyon

Maison de la Culture, Grenoble

Musée Picasso, Antibes

Musée de la Ville, Toulon

Musée Départemental, Epinal

Musée de la Ville, Menton

Château-Musée, Cagnes sur Mer

Musée d'Art Moderne, Baux de Provence

Musée des Arts Graphiques, Roquebrune Cap Martin

Abroad

Musée Tchèque d'Arts Plastiques, Prague, Czech Republic
Galerie Nationale, Prague, Czech Republic

Zapadomoravske Museum, Trebic, Czech Republic

Musée de Moravie, Brno, Czech Republic

Galerie Vysociny, Jihlava, Czech Republic

Ghetto Museum, Terezin, Czech Republic

Collection pour Lidice, Lidice, Czech Republic
Musée d'Art Contemporain, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

Musée d'Art Moderne, Slovejn Gradec, Slovenia

Musée d'Art Moderne, Belgrade, Serbia

Musée de la Ville, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Musée d'Art Moderne, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Fondation Veranneman, Kruishouten, Belgium
Museo d'Arte Moderno, Castelanza, Italia

Fondazionne Pagani, Legnano, Italia

Antonie Deussen Stiftung, Zurzach, Switzerland

Kunst Museum, Düsseldorf, Germany

Kunst Museum, Bochum, Germany

B.Russel Foundation, Londres, Great Britain

The Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA

Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, USA

Coca Cola Bottling Co, New York, USA
Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA

The Haggerty Museum of Art, Milwauke, USA
Collection Hasegawa, Tokyo, Japan

Musée d'Art Contemporain, Nagoya, Japan

Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israël

Mourtala Diop Collection, Dakar, Senegal

Collection «

Against Apartheid », Le Cap, South Africa

Collective exhibitions - Art Fairs (since 2015)

2021 Enfances, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2020 Le torse d’une femme à la pureté d’un vase, grands courbes simples d’un fruit désiré, Parcours d’art contemporain autour d’Auguste Rodin, 1 exhibition, 5 locations, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2019 L’arbre c’est le temps rendu visible, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
Antica Namur 2019 – November 9th to 17th, Hall 1 stand D19, avec la Galerie Capazza, Belgique

2018 Miroir des Sentiments, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2017 Il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2016 Vénus et Vulcain, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2015 Ensemble depuis 40ans, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

Personal exhibitions

2018 "D'homme à hommes", in partenership with Galerie Capazza (Nançay) and the Department Council of Indre-et-Loire, Prieuré St Cosme, La Riche

2016 Personal exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2015 Ostrava, Galerie des Beaux-Arts

2013 Coustellet, Galerie 22
Saint Paul de Vence, Galerie Bogena
Mol, Art Point International

2012 Prague, Musée Kampa
Prague, Nova Sin

2011 Galerie Capazza, Nançay
Centre d'Art Contemporain, Eysines
Galerie Art 204, Düsseldorf
Galerie Marie Pierre Vitoux, Paris

2010 BARGEMON Galerie Beddington Fine Arts, Bargemon
Art Point Gallery International, Mol
Clos des Cimaises, St Geroges du Bois

2009 Galerie Bogena, Saint Paul de Vence
Egon Schiele Art Centrum, Cesky Krumlov
Musée de la Ville-Château Spilberk, Brno
Galerie de Saint James, Bordeaux-Bouliac

2008 Galerie Françoise Souchaud, Lyon
Espace Paul Riquet, Beziers
Galerie Marie Vitoux, Paris
Maison des Artistes, Haute de Cagnes

2007 Galerie P.M. Vitoux, Paris
Espace Sévigné, Paris
Chapelle des Ursulines, Quimperlé
Chapelle de l'Observance, Draguignan

2006 Galerie Capazza, Nançay
Galerie Ardital, Aix-en-Provence

2005 Musée site Buffon, Montbard
Galerie Art 204, Düsseldorf
Espace Ecureil, Marseille
Galerie Blanche, Falicon

2004 Lycée St Charles, Marseille
Galerie P.M. Vitoux, Paris

2003 Galerie Bogena, Saint-Paul

2001 Espace Ecureuil, Toulouse
Espace St.Jean, Melun
Galerie Terre d'Art, Saint Paul
Vieux Presbytère, Gorbio

2000 Villa Tamaris, La Seyne sur Mer
La Hune Brenner, Paris
Galerie Art 204, Düsseldorf

1999 Ferme des Arts, Vaison la Romaine
B-Art Space, Tokyo

1998 Galerie Art 204, Düsseldorf
Galerie Capazza, Nançay

1997 Espace Écureuil, Marseille
Musée de la Ville, Trebic
Galerie Art 204, Düsseldorf
Galerie Hasegawa, Tokyo
Hasegawa Space Concept Company, Tokyo

1996 Passage de l'Art, Marseille
Château-Musée, Cagnes-sur-Mer
Musée Hébert, Grenoble
Le parcours du regard, Oletta
Maison des Princes, Perouges

1995 Centre Culturel Franco-Nigérien, Niamey
Musée Tchèque d'Arts - Plastiques, Prague
MAMAC SCLOS DE CONTES Lou Peuy, Nice

1993 Galerie Capazza, Nançay
Galerie ART 204, Düsseldorf

1992 Haggerty Museum of Art , Milwaukke

1991 Pernod-Hall J. Hemard, Créteil
Galerie Suzel Berna, Antibes
Galerie Evelyne Canus, La Colle sur Loup

1990 Galerie Eterso, Cannes
Musée de la Castre, Cannes
Galerie Art 204, Düsseldorf
Galerie Pierre Lescot, Paris

1989 Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York
Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York
Miller's Studio, Zurich
Espace Gavoty, Brignoles
Kunstmuseum, Bochum
Studio Kostel, Paris

1988 Galerie Jade, Colmar
Miller-Brown Gallery, San Francisco
Alliance Française, San Francisco
Lippische Gesselschaft für Kunst, Detmold

1987 Musée Picasso, Antibes
Musée d'Art Contemporain, Dunkerque
Galerie Art 204, Düsseldorf
Clasen Gallery, New York

1986 Galerie Pierre Lescot, Paris
Galerie Chave, Vence
Lo Païs, Draguignan

1985 12 Greene Street Gallery, New York

1984 Galerie Joachim Becker, Cannes
Robert Brown Gallery, Washington DC
Anne Johnson Gallery, Cambridge-MA

1982 Centre d'Action Culturelle, Mâcon
Musée de Peinture, Grenoble
Galerie Murs Ouverts, Vence
Galerie Pierre Lescot, Paris
Galerie le Nez en l'air, Nice
Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Nice

1981 Centre d'Art Contemporain, Montignac
Centre d'Art Contemporain, Rouen
Centre d'Action Culturelle, Montbéliard

1980 Ancien Couvent Royal, Saint Maximin
Galerie Alinea, Toulon
Pavillon de l'ancien hospice, Lille
Galerie Alpha, Bordeaux

1979 Galerie Pierre Lescot, Paris
Centre culturel-Le Parvis, Tarbes
Galerie la Tête de l'Art, Grenoble

1978 Galerie Le Lutrin, Lyon
Galerie Remarque, Trans en Provence

1977 Italie Galerie Pagani Milano

1976 Maison de la Culture, Amiens
Centre culturel P.Picasso, Homecourt
Galerie Lornsenstrasse, Kiel
Galerie Candela, Cannes

1975 Centre culturel Pablo Neruda, Corbeil

1974 Maison de la Culture, Saint Etienne
Musée Galliera -Ville de Paris, Paris
Maison de la Culture, Grenoble
Galerie Rencontre, Paris

1973  Musée de la Ville, Menton

1971  Maison de la Culture, Grasse

1968 Galerie Zunini, Paris
Galerie Thot, Avignon
Galerie Zunini, Paris
Galerie Le soleil dans la tête, Paris

1966  Galerie Plaza, Nice

1964 Galerie Internationale, Nice

1962  Haus am Lützoplatz, Berlin
Galerie Internationale

1961 Galerie Internationale, Nice
St. Martin's Gallery, Londres

1960 Galerie Genet, Paris
Galerie Briffaut, Versailles

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