In the past thirty years, for Czech art Alén Diviš (1900 – 1956) has become synonymous with the concept of the artistic outsider. The difficult to classify loner, creator of hallucinatory visions, horror scenes, and passionate religious depictions, is one of the least researched personalities in the world of Czech art, and he remains a man around whom many legends and myths are woven.

Alén Diviš spent most of his life abroad. At the end of the 1920s, he made his way to Paris, at the time the capital of modern art. At the beginning of the Second World War he was accused of spying here and spent several months incarcerated in solitary confinement at La Santé Prison. After passing through concentration camps in France, Morocco, and Martinique, he found refuge in New York. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1947, and during his short time here kindled interest in his work. However, as the Iron Curtain descended after 1948, he found himself marginalized, destitute, and forsaken. At various stages, Diviš was influenced by Cubism and Expressionism, and in his own individual way he anticipated Art Brut and Informal painting. His work was primarily based on a powerful preoccupation with existential themes, whether inspired by his own tragic lot or by literature.

Curators: Vanda Skálová, Tomáš Pospiszyl