Václav Radimský

In his time, Václav Radimský (1867–1946) was one of the distinctive and interesting personalities associated with Czech and French landscape painting. He was the first Czech painter in France influenced by Impressionism and he was the first who introduced this movement to the Czech milieu. We can divide Radimský’s artwork into two thematic and chronological periods. The first occurs from 1890–1918 approximately when he lived in Giverny near Vernon and the river Seine and the surrounding landscape became his permanent inspiration. At the time he was friends with Paul Cézanne and worked together with Claude Monet, among others. The second period is defined by Radimský’s return to Bohemia after the end of the First World War and lasts until his death. During this period he focused primarily on depicting the Elbe River and the landscape around Kolín.

This is the first monograph of the artist whose work has lately come to be highly appraised and it finally pays back the debt that the art historical record has long owed to the painter. In addition to essays by the main author Naděžda Blažíčková-Horová, the book also contains a study by Markéta Theinhardtová featuring the artist’s work in relation to modern French art. It also contains a list of Radimský’s paintings with almost five hundred reproductions in colour and has a detailed summary in French and English.