Květovaná košile – limited litograph – Josef Bolf

Product detailed description

“These prints are inspired by drawings and watercolours I have been making since around 2000. It was a strange period when I didn’t quite know what my paintings should look like. By chance I came across my old school notebooks – on the blotting paper there were drawings of half-human, half-animal figures that inspired me to use these motifs as a new foundation.” – Josef Bolf

This limited edition was produced in 21 copies, each print signed by the artist. The combination of a traditional printmaking technique and the artist’s direct intervention gives every sheet the status of a unique original, somewhere between print and painting.

The limited edition Květovaná košile continues motifs that Josef Bolf has been developing in his work for more than two decades. The inspiration came from drawings found in his old school notebooks, which later evolved into the characteristic figures appearing in Bolf’s paintings and drawings. In this print they appear within the familiar setting of housing estate landscapes.

The base of the work was created using the technique of lithography, printed on a manual lever press. When printing from stone, the drawing is transferred to the paper in reverse, and each impression may carry subtle variations in line and tone.

The artist then re-entered each sheet – hand-finishing it with watercolour, ink and gouache. As a result, every print has its own character and slight differences. Although all prints share the same motif, no two are identical.

This limited edition was created exclusively for the Kunsthalle Praha Design Shop.

Josef Bolf

*Josef Bolf (1971, Prague) is one of the most distinctive figures of the contemporary Czech art scene. His work develops a unique visual language in which childhood memories, dreamlike imagination and the melancholic atmosphere of urban outskirts intertwine. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in the studios of Jiří Načeradský, Vladimír Kokolia and Vladimír Skrepl, and completed study stays at the Kungliga Konsthögskolan in Stockholm and the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Stuttgart. He was also a member of the artistic group Bezhlavý jezdec. Bolf’s paintings and drawings often depict strange, vulnerable figures placed in the settings of housing estates or nocturnal landscapes. These melancholic characters resemble figures from children’s comics, yet carry a strong existential reflection on uncertainty, memory and the inner world of contemporary life. Bolf has exhibited in numerous important galleries in the Czech Republic and internationally, including Trafo Gallery in Budapest, Ana Cristea Gallery in New York and Aracute Arte Contemporaneo in Beijing.