89th Auction, lot 92 This exceptional large-format work perfectly demonstrates Muzika’s immense creative power and artistic talent. He was a versatile artist, and he had successes in the field of stage design and typography as well. Between the wars, František Muzika was one of the key representatives of Czech modernism; he gradually adopted Picasso’s neoclassicism and afterwards reconnected his aesthetic views with the artists from the Devětsil generation [an association of Czech avant-garde artists], which started inclining towards imaginative painting. Eventually, he was one of the few artists who remained faithful to surrealism after the war. During the 1960s, he returned to his established themes but elaborated them with new inventions and painterly and ideological approaches. It also applies to the cycle of Citadels, which first appeared in his work in the second half of the 1940s. In the 1960s, he followed up with the Cairns cycle, monumental stone steps above which the tragic shade of death hovers, through which he subsequently returned to the Citadel cycle and continued working on it. The unifying element of these cycles was the theme of death and extinction. The presented painting, Citadel II, also dates from this period. The rocky prominence, the structure of which resembles a moonstone, sticking out into the tense void, carries the faint outlines of the walls on its top. It reveals that this inhuman rock is the refuge of the living. Its magical and anxious atmosphere is reminiscent of Böcklin’s Island of the Dead as well as Muzika’s own Islands from the 1930s. The value of this work is enhanced by its presentation at the artist’s solo exhibition in 1963 (New paintings by František Muzika, Fronta Exhibition Hall, Prague, 1 December 1963 – 1 January 1964, cat. No. 42). A year later it was exhibited at the Czechoslovak pavilion of the XXXII. Venice Biennale (Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte 1964, Venice, 20 June – 18 October 1964), as evidenced by the stamp and the reproduction in the associated catalogue. It was also published in the artist’s monograph (F. Šmejkal: František Muzika, Prague 1966, cat. No. 162). Citadel II is numbered 831 in Muzika’s own inventory. It comes from a high-quality Moravian collection. Assessed during consultations by PhDr. K. Srp and PhDr. R. Michalová, Ph.D. The expertise of Mgr. E. Vele is attached.