Josef Istler (1919 – 2000)

Painting, 1967, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right “Istler 67”, painting dimensions 249.5 × 178.5 cm, overall dimensions with frame 258 × 187 cm.

Provenance: Important private collection

Executed in 1967, this monumental painting is a remarkable example of Josef Istler’s work from the second half of the 1960s, a period in which he brought his highly personal Informel vocabulary to full maturity. Works from these years were typically given the simple title Painting. In the 1960s, Istler was closely connected with the circle of artists associated with the Konfrontace group, among them Mikuláš Medek, Vladimír Boudník, Robert Piesen, Jan Koblasa and Zbyněk Sekal, placing his work within the wider framework of Czech Informel. Its characteristic Informel handling, carefully structured arrangement of colour fields and impressive scale make this work a particularly significant and rarely available example of Istler’s mature painting.