Sovak. clear vision[s]
September 2–October 23, 2016
Pravoslav Sovak is one of the most internationally renown graphic artists of his generation.
Sovak’s prints and drawings have an almost magical aura. With the greatest technical refinement he transposes philosophical and socio-political subjects, complex museum and travel impressions, atmospheric cityscapes and desert landscapes into poetic pictorial worlds. Sovak prints in highly complex procedures with as many as ten different plates. He has perfected the technique of photographic etching and combines it with collage and watercoloring, making almost every print an original with finely balanced nuances. In recent years Sovak has also created large-format digital works and collages composed of detritus from his long life.
Born in Czechoslovakia in 1926 and acknowledged worldwide at an early age as a master of printmaking, he fled his homeland when Soviet-led forces entered Prague in 1968. After extended working sojourns in the United States and Western Europe, he settled in Switzerland in 1969, where he now lives and works in Hergiswil at Lake Lucerne. Sovak partook of the 36th Venice biennale in 1972, and important works of his complete many of the world’s major collections, among them The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Albertina in Vienna and The British Museum in London.
In his 90th year, the Kunsthalle Mannheim is devoting a retrospective to Pravoslav Sovak presenting some 100 works from all phases of his career. Colored etchings and watercolored drawings will be on show as well as large-format digital works and late collages. The Kunsthalle Mannheim publishes a catalogue raisonné of Sovak’s prints and collages from 1995 to the present.
Under the patronage of His Excellency, the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Germany Tomáš Jan Podivínský.
Generously supported by: Freundeskreis Pravoslav Sovak / Kulturkommission Gemeinde Hergiswil / Schindler-Stiftung / Nidwaldner Sachversicherung NSV / Dr. Annemarie Reynolds / Annemarie und Elmar Wohlgensinger
