Maxim Kopf

Maxim Kopf (born Maximilian Kopf; 18 January 1892 – 6 July 1958) was an Austrian-American painter, graphic artist and sculptor. He worked in Prague and was a prominent figure of German cultural life in Czechoslovakia in the interwar period. He was initially strongly influenced by Expressionism and later primarily created works with biblical themes as well as city and landscape images. He is also called a cosmopolitan painter because he created his paintings in Germany, Czechoslovakia, France, Polynesia and the United States. He traveled extensively and visited Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Dalmatia, Bessarabia and Crimea, among other places.

Life and work
Maxim Kopf was born on 18 January 1892 in Vienna as the second of four children of the Austrian civil servant Emil Kopf (1863–1911) and his wife Louisa, née Jagemann (died 1865). He grew up in a German-speaking family and probably also had Czech roots through his grandmother Maria Truhelková. Starting in 1911, he studied under August Brömse, Franz Thiele, Vlaho Bukovac, and Karl Krattner at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague. During the war he was an officer in the Joint Army of Austria-Hungary. After the end of the war he chose Czechoslovakian citizenship and stayed in Prague. He was a member of the Metznerbund and in 1919, with August Brömse, co-founder of the artist group Die Pilger, an association of German and German-speaking artists in Bohemia. The group initially included other students of Brömse such as Josef Hegenbarth, Emil Helzel, Norbert Hochsieder, Julius Pfeiffer and Leo Sternhell. Mary Duras, Walther Klemm, Moriz Melzer and Emil Orlik later joined the group, which existed until 1925. In 1920 he received a prize from the Prague Academy for the picture The Pilgrim. Thanks to a scholarship, he was able to continue his studies at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts under Otto Gussmann (1869–1926) from 1921 to 1923.

Kopf traveled to Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands in 1924 and began his first South Seas cycle. In 1925 he worked for the Ziegfeld Theater. Here, he was able to organize an exhibition in the New Gallery for visiting artists Hilde Goldschmidt, Friedrich Karl Gotsch and Hans Meyboden.

He then stayed in Paris and Montrouge and then lived again in Prague, where his first marriage was to the sculptor Mary Duras in 1927, with whom he had already spent time in New York in 1923. In Prague in 1927 he founded the Young Art group, which had its first exhibition in 1928 and from which the Prague Secession emerged in 1929. In the same year he also stayed in the Giant Mountains. In 1932 he traveled to Italy and stayed in Torbole on Lake Garda. In 1933–34 he worked on the large ceiling fresco of the former German House in Prague. His marriage to Duras ended in divorce in 1933. In 1936 he married the actress Lotte Stein in Prague, but this marriage also ended in divorce in the 1940s.

At the end of the summer of 1934 he undertook his second voyage via Suez, Ceylon, Singapore, Sydney and New Caledonia to Tahiti, which resulted in the pictures of the second South Sea cycle. He returned to Prague in the spring of 1935 via Martinique. In 1936 he spent a month visiting countries on the Black Sea, including the USSR, Bessarabia, Sevastopol and Yalta in Crimea. In May 1938 he traveled to Tahiti for the third time; he returned to Prague in autumn 1938. After the fall of Czechoslovakia, he fled from Prague via Germany and Holland to Paris in March 1939, staying in Czechoslovakia's Maison de la Culture until September. He was then arrested and interned as an enemy alien for five months. He then went to French Morocco as a member of the French Foreign Legion, but was interned again after France capitulated. His next stop was Martinique, where he was also interned, so that he spent a total of over two years in camps. It was not until 1941 that he was able to emigrate to the United States and came to New York. In 1942 he received American citizenship. In the summer of 1942 he met the journalist Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961), who he portrayed in her home on the Twin Farms farm in Barnard, Vermont. About a year later, Dorothy Thompson and Maxim Kopf were married in Barnard. In 1944 he exhibited at the American British Art Center. In the summer of 1945 he visited Prague for the last time with Dorothy Thompson and her son. His last trip to Tahiti took place in April 1952.

Kopf died on July 6, 1958, in Lebanon, New Hampshire and was buried at Barnard Village Cemetery in Barnard, Windsor County, Vermont. He and Dorothy Thompson were buried in Barnard Cemetery.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions with works by Maxim Kopf
 * 1922: Exhibition "April to April" together with "The Pilgrims" in the Art Association for Bohemia (Czech Krasoumná jednota ) in the Rudolfinum Prague
 * 1923: Maxim Kopf exhibition together with "The Pilgrims" in the Art Association for Bohemia in Prague
 * 1923: Maxim Kopf exhibition together with "The Pilgrims" in Dresden
 * 1923: Maxim Kopf's joint exhibition at the Art Association for Bohemia in Prague
 * 1926: Exhibition with Mary Duras at the Salon der Independenten in the Grand Palais in Paris
 * 1927: Exhibition at the Independent Salon in the Grand Palais in Paris
 * 1927: Exhibition of Maxim Kopf and Mary Duras in the Haus der Kunst, Prague
 * 1928: Exhibition with the "Young Art" group in the Rudolfinum Prague
 * 1928: Exhibition in the Artists' House in Brno
 * 1929: I. Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1930: represented in the exhibition Paintings and Sculptures from Brno Private Collections of the Moravian Art Association in the Brno Artists' House
 * 1930: II. Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1931: Solo exhibition of Maxim Kopf, paintings and drawings in Nuremberg in the German Museum (Sudeten German Art Exhibition)
 * 1931: III. Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1932: Exhibition in Berlin, Hartberg Gallery
 * 1932: IV. Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1933: Exhibition of Willy Nowak, Josef Dobrevsky, Maxim Kopf, Sergius Pauser, Mary Duras, Moravian Art Association, in the Brno Artists' House
 * 1933: Fifth exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1934: VI. Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession": Pictures from Dalmatia, in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1935: Special exhibition: Maxim Kopf, Otto Mlčoch, Ilse Pompe, Trude Schmidl-Wähner, Moravian Art Association, in the Künstlerhaus Brno
 * 1935: Collective exhibition with Maxim Kopf at the Art Association for Bohemia in Prague
 * 1935: VII. Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1936: VIII exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1937: Maxim Kopf exhibition, at the Art Association for Bohemia, Prague.
 * 1937: IX. Exhibition of the Association of Visual Artists "Prague Secession" in the Art Association for Bohemia Prague
 * 1937: represented in the exhibition of Czechoslovak art in the USSR (Moscow, Leningrad)
 * 1942: Solo exhibition in New York, Wakefield Gallery
 * 1943: Solo exhibition in New York with Andre Seligmann
 * 1944: Solo exhibition in New York, American British Art Center
 * 1947: Solo exhibition in New York, American British Art Center
 * 1950: Exhibition of paintings and sculptures by Maxim Kopf in New York, Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries
 * 1953: Exhibition of Maxim Kopf's last paintings in New York, John Heller Gallery

Selected works
Maxim Kopf was a very productive, cosmopolitan painter whose works can be found in Europe and the USA. A large number of his works were represented at art auctions.
 * Crucifixion (1920), Liberec Regional Gallery
 * The Pilgrim (1920), National Gallery Prague
 * Conception (1920–21), National Gallery Prague
 * Buddha (1920), Liberec Regional Gallery
 * Religious Theme (1924), Narodní památkový ústav (NPÚ) Prague, Hořovice Castle
 * After the bath (1930), private collection
 * View of Prague (1937), Gallery of the Capital Prague
 * Vision (1920), National Gallery Prague
 * Lovers (1925), Gallery Zlatá Husa Prague
 * Portrait of the sculptor Mary Duras at work (1928), Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg
 * Dance Bar (1920), Liberec Regional Gallery
 * Tupuraa, Tahiti (1934), private collection
 * Tahiti (1934), Zlatá Husa Gallery Prague
 * Times Square (1924), National Gallery Prague
 * Columbus Circle (1924–25) (lost)
 * Holy Communion (1921)
 * Montrouge (1927)
 * Portrait of Mary Duras (1928)
 * Falkenau coal mine (1929)
 * Self-Portrait (1929), Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg
 * Tahitian women
 * New York (1941–42)
 * The Beachcomber
 * Farewell (The Farewell)

Collections
Works by Maxim Kopf are represented in the following collections:
 * Everson Museum of Art
 * Hood Museum of Art
 * Memorial Art Gallery
 * Brooklyn Museum of Art
 * Museum of Modern Art in New York
 * Saint Louis Art Museum
 * National Gallery Prague
 * Liberec Regional Gallery
 * Moravian Gallery in Brno

Miscellaneous
Kopf created an Ex Libris (bookplate) for Dorothy Thompson. It shows a female figure walking over a devil figure, carrying a book in her raised hands.