The Long Anti-Fascist Struggle in the Work of Czechoslovak Artists

• In Event: The Limits of Liberation and the Central European Avant-Garde

Abstract

This paper explores the continuities of anti-fascism in the work of Czech visual artists such as Antonín Pelc and Radomír Kolář who responded to world events from the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia to the 1973 coup d’etat in Chile. While the political and cultural climate underwent dramatic changes in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and again in 1968, this paper aims to trace the ways in which anti-fascism was mobilized by Czech and Slovak artists to combat colonial aggression and right-wing military dictatorships worldwide.

Author

• Radoslav Istok, National Gallery Prague (Czech Republic)