Provenance: Sotheby’s Amsterdam, 13 juni 1990, lot 391 • Private collection • Christie’s Amsterdam, 5 October 2022, lot 34
Was for sale / Sold
Tomas Rajlich (1940) received his art education in Prague at the School of Decorative Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts. Trained as a sculptor, he soon chose to work in a geometric style. In 1966, he co-founded the Klub Konkretistů—the Czech equivalent of the Zero (Nul/Zéro) movement—which brought him national recognition. A few years later, the international art world discovered his work during the group exhibition Sculpture Tchécoslovaque at the Musée Rodin.
In 1969, Rajlich decided to flee his homeland due to the Soviet occupation and settled in the Netherlands. He was appointed professor at the Free Academy, where he found his vocation as a painter. Represented by the galleries Art & Project in Amsterdam and Yvon Lambert in Paris, his work quickly gained international recognition. Rajlich received invitations to participate in groundbreaking exhibitions, such as Fundamental Painting (1975) at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Opposing the prevailing idea of the early 1970s that painting was “dead,” Rajlich took a stand. He revived the art form by making the act of painting itself the subject. This positioned Rajlich as one of the leading representatives of Fundamental Painting, a collective term for works in which concept and material coincide. His early works are characterized by an industrial appearance, consistently based on the grid as a hallmark. In his later work as well, he continues to investigate painting as a medium.
Rajlich’s first retrospective exhibition was organized in 1993 by Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia. In 1994, the Netherlands awarded Rajlich the prestigious Ouborg Prize for his lifetime achievements, accompanied by a second retrospective at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague. A decade later, in 2005, the museum presented his works on paper in honor of his 65th birthday. In his native Czech Republic, a retrospective followed in 1998 at the Dům umění města Brna.
Rajlich’s work is included in numerous respected public collections worldwide. From 1999 to 2002, Rajlich was artist-in-residence at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
