Prague, Nov 9 (CTK) – Renowned Czech art historian Frantisek Dvorak, who wrote 35 monographs of artists, a number of whicch were translated into foreign languages, including Japanese, died suddenly at the age of 95 years yesterday, his family has announced to CTK.
Dvorak mainly focused on the works by Czech artists Frantisek Tichy, Jan Zrzavy, Kamil Lhotak and Adolf Born.
Dvorak was active in his field until his death. During the celebrations of his 95th birthday in the spring, he said he would like to write a book about the art collections of Prague Castle.
“I have never had conflicts with people,” Dvorak told CTK then, revealing his magic formula for longevity.
He is also the author of several TV cycles, for instance, on the 14th century Charles Bridge, the oldest stone bridge in Prague, on modern Czech painters and on the artistic decoration of the National Theatre in Prague.
Until the age of 90, Dvorak was lecturing at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. Until 92, he also worked as a personal guide of art metropolises and galleries in Paris, Venice and Vienna.
Dvorak graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, majoring in art history and aesthetics, in 1949.
In 1950-1958, he worked as an assistant to Professor Vaclav Vilem Stech at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.
In 1956, Dvorak, as a theoretician, participated in the establishment of the Maj art group that was the first to deviate from the officially promoted socialist realism in the 1950s.
In the 1960s, Dvorak was lecturing art history at the Film Academy (FAMU) in Prague where his students were later famous directors of the Czechoslovak New Film Wave, such as Oscar-winning Milos Forman.
In 1960-63, Dvorak worked as an expert in the graphic art collections of the National Gallery. Then he became a teacher at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Prague. From 1969-85 he was a lecturer at the plastic arts chair of the Palacky University in Olomouc, north Moravia.
After the collapse of the communist regime in 1989, Dvorak worked at FAMU again and from 1993 at the the Faculty of Arts of Charles University where he was appointed professor.
In 2010, Dvorak received the Artis Bohemiae Amicis (Friends of Czech Art) award from the culture minister for his livelong promotion of Czech culture in the world. Vaclav Klaus bestowed the president´s golden plaque on him in the same year.
hol/dr/rtj
