Naděžda Plíšková

Naděžda Plíšková (6 November 1934 Rozdělov u Kladna - 16 September 1999 Prague) was a Czech printmaker, painter, ceramist, author of sculptural objects and poet.

Life
Naděžda Plíšková studied graphic art at the Higher School of Arts and Crafts in Prague (1950-1954, prof. Jaroslav Vodrážka) and in 1954-1958 she studied graphic art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (prof. Vladimír Silovský). In 1958-1959 she took a scholarship at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig (prof. Gerhard Kurt Miller), which she completed with a series of woodcuts for books by Karel Čapek. She was then accepted to study painting in the studio of Prof. Karel Souček at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where she spent two more honorary years after graduation (1961) and passed the state exam (Prof. Jiří Kotalík).

In addition to printmaking, she worked on ceramics, wrote poetry and socialised with artists and theoreticians from the Křižovnická School. In 1964 she married the sculptor and printmaker Karel Nepraš. Their daughter Karolína Neprašová-Kračková is also an artist.

In 1968-1969 she completed a scholarship in Stuttgart and had an exhibition there with Jiří Balcar. Plíšková has returned to Czechoslovakia occupied by the Warsaw Pact troops. She was offered another scholarship by the Ford Foundation in November 1969, but was not allowed to go to the United States. After the birth of her daughter (1975) and with limited opportunity to exhibit, she devoted herself mainly to ex libris and writing poetry for samizdat editions. During normalization she had only a few exhibitions in small unofficial galleries.

In 1982 she suffered a serious spinal cord injury, underwent surgery and a long convalescence. After returning from the hospital, in the suffocating atmosphere of the Husák normalization, she almost resigned to her own work. In 1983, she wrote to Jindřich Chalupecký: "If you only knew how hard it is to get used to the fact that nobody counts on you anymore, and to watch averages, diligent averages, exhibiting, scheming and going merrily on".

Plíšková has been a member of Association of Czech Graphic Artists Hollar since 1969. After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, she was a founding member of the free association Tolerance, but her artistic and literary work is clearly marked by her unhappy personal fate until the late 1990s. She died in Prague on 16 September 1999.

Literary work and illustrations
She published her poems and prose from the late 1950s and then especially in the 1970s in samizdat publications - Czech Expedition, Spektrum, Vokno, Revolver Revue, Lidové noviny, etc. The poetry collection Thirteen Poems (1982) was also published in samizdat. She is listed in the Toronto Dictionary of Czech Writers (1982).

Some of these texts are included in the collection Plíšková by alphabet (1991). Poems and prose stylized as overheard monologues and restaurant speeches make up the book Pub Romanticism (1998). The poems collected in the volume Plíšková to Herself (2000) are mostly reflections on personal relationships, from motherhood and friends' parties to an increasingly strong perception of the loss of love, cruel loneliness, and reflections on the end of life. The posthumously published book contains works from 1997 to 1999, some texts not included in other publications and, in the editorial notes, a transcription of letters to Jindřich Chalupecký.

A commentary on some of the author's life milestones is her interview with Andrej Stankovič in Revolver Revue No. 47 of 2001, which was published posthumously at her request.

Quote
Naděžda Plíšková: S U N should shine more at night, there is enough light in the day-time anyway

Illustrations

 * Klement Bochořák, Poems for big children, drawing on the cover, frontispiece by Naděžda Plíšková, Edition Czech Poems, vol. 233, Prague 1964
 * Michal Černík, A Life Deciphered, illustration: Naděžda Plíšková, Edition Czech Poems, Prague 1987
 * Petr Kovařík, Don't talk to me when I shave, illustration: Naděžda Plíšková, Mladá fronta, Prague 1990. ISBN 80-204-0168-7

Prints and drawings
Naděžda Plíšková already attracted attention with her bravura drawings and graphic sheets at group exhibitions of young artists in the early 1960s. Her work is still relevant today, although the subjects of her best-known works reflect the state of society before 1970. They show her penetrating intelligence, her lively sense of humour and sharp irony, as well as expressing the absurdity of specific life situations.

In her first drawings, she still refers to informel and the legacy of surrealism (Couple, 1963, The Jealous Beetle, 1966), but gradually concentrates on ironic reflection on contemporary themes (On the Subject of Caesar's Thumb, 1970). Her work from the 1960s was permeated by the invention, hope and perhaps even naivety of a decade that has fundamentally influenced everything that has happened in art since.

Representation in collections

 * Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
 * Musée de l'art contemporaine, Paris
 * Musée de la Ville de Paris
 * Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao
 * Museum Essen
 * Kunsthalle, Darmstadt
 * Owens Art Gallery Sackville, New Brunswick
 * National Gallery in Prague
 * Slovak National Gallery
 * Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Hluboká nad Vltavou
 * Czech Museum of Fine Arts, Prague
 * Prague City Gallery
 * Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice nad Labem
 * North Bohemian Gallery of Fine Arts in Litoměřice
 * Regional Gallery in Liberec
 * Gallery of Fine Arts in Ostrava
 * Art Gallery Karlovy Vary
 * Gallery of Fine Arts in Havlíčkův Brod
 * Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové
 * Regional Gallery of the Highlands in Jihlava
 * Gallery of Fine Arts in Hodonin
 * Museum of Art and Design Benešov
 * Private collections at home and abroad

Author´s

 * 1967 Gallery of Youth, Mánes, Prague
 * 1968 Nadezda Pliskova & Jiri Balcar: Grafik, Galerie am Berg, Stuttgart
 * 1968 Graphics, Small Gallery of the Czechoslovak Writer, Brno
 * 1970 Graphics, sculptures 1968–1970, Václav Špála Gallery, Prague
 * 1978 Drawings, graphics, Cabinet of Graphic Arts, Olomouc
 * 1982 Drawings and graphics, Exhibition Centre Černá Louka, Ostrava
 * 1993 Revalvace, graphics, drawings, objects, Hollar Gallery, Prague
 * 1997 Prints, drawings, Regional Gallery, Liberec
 * 2000 Silence must be cultivated, Montmartre Gallery, Prague, Gambit Gallery, Prague
 * 2013 Prints, objects, Hollar, Prague

Collective exhibitions abroad (selection)

 * 1965	Keramik aus 12 ländern, Internationaler Künstlerclub IKC (Palais Pálffy), Vienna
 * 1966	Junge tschechische Grafik, Heidelberg
 * 1967	Tschechische Kunst, Göhrde
 * 1967 	17 tsjechische kunstenaars, Galerie Orez, The Hague
 * 1968	Kunstamt Wilmersdorf, Berlín
 * 1968 	Sex Från Prag, Konstforum, Norrköping, Stenhusgården, Linköping
 * 1968	VI. Internationale ausstellung Graphik, Europahaus Wien
 * 1969	Zestien Tsjechische kunstenaars: Dertien grafici en drie keramisten, Amsterdam
 * 1969	Junge Künstler aus der ČSSR, Berlin
 * 1969 	6 Graveurs de Prague, Galerie La Hune, Paris
 * 1969 	Salon de Mai, Sales d´Exposition Wilson, Paris
 * 1969–1970 Recent Graphics from Prague, 12th Floor Gallery, Los Angeles
 * 1970 Graveurs tchécoslovaques contemporains, Cabinet d'arts graphiques, Genéve
 * 1971 45 zeitgenössische künstler aus der Tschechoslowakei: Malerei, Plastik, Grafik, Glasobjekte, Baukunst, Cologne
 * 1971	Werken van Tsjechoslowaakse Grafici 1960-1970, Utrecht
 * 1973 	Art tchèque contemporain. Fribourg
 * 1978	Christchurch Art Festival, Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Christchurch
 * 1980	Die Kunst Osteuropas im 20. Jahrhundert, Garmisch-Partenkirchen
 * 1990	Image Imprimée de Tchécoslovaquie. Affiche, gravure, illustration, La Louviere
 * 1995	Grafik tschechischer Künstler, Bad Steben
 * 2005 	Strength and Will: Czech Prints from behind the Iron Curtain, Anne and Jacques Baruch Collection, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati
 * 2005 Œuvres graphiques des années 60, Centre tchèque Paris

Monography

 * I, Naděžda Plíšková, text by Mariana Placáková, Museum Kampa - Jan and Meda Mládek Foundation, Prague 2019, ISBN 978-80-87344-49-1

Author catalogues (selection)

 * Naděžda Plíšková : graphic art, text by Oleg Sus, Ludmila Vachtová, Čs. spisovatel, Brno 1968
 * Naděžda Plíšková, text by Ivan Jirous, Art Centrum, Prague 1969
 * Naděžda Plíšková : prints, sculptures, drawings, introduction by Ivan Jirous, Gallery of Fine Arts, Havlíčkův Brod 1970
 * Naděžda Plíšková : prints - sculptures 1968-1970, text by Ivan Jirous., Union of Czechoslovak Visual Artists, Prague 1970
 * Naděžda Plíšková : drawings and prints, text by František Dvořák, photographs by Ivan Wurm, Jiří Hampl and the photographic workshop of the National Gallery, in: Regional Gallery of Fine Arts, Olomouc 1978
 * Naděžda Plíšková : prints - drawings - ex libris, text by František Šmejkal. Prague: Czech Fine Arts Fund, 1981
 * Naděžda Plíšková : drawings and prints, text by Jindřich Chalupecký, František Dvořák, František Šmejkal, Milan Weber, Ostrava 1982
 * Naděžda Plíšková : revalvace : prints, drawings, objects, Hollar Gallery, Prague 1993
 * Naděžda Plíšková : prints and objects, text by Naďa Řeháková, Regional Gallery in Liberec 1997

General monographs

 * Luboš Hlaváček, Contemporary graphics (II), Odeon, Prague 1978, pp. 68–69.
 * Genevieve Bénamou, L'art aujourd'hui en Tchécoslovaquie, 190 p., Genevieve Bénamou (ed.), Goussainville 1979
 * František Dvořák, Contemporary ex-libris, Odeon, Prague 1979, pp. 62–63.
 * Jindřich Marco, About graphic art : a book for collectors and art lovers, Mladá fronta, Prague 1981, pp. 107, 137, 335.
 * Jindřich Chalupecký, New Art in Bohemia, Edition Ars pictura, vol. 1., 173 p., H&H, Jinočany 1994, ISBN 80-85787-81-4.
 * Jiří Bouda et al., Czech Graphic Art of the 20th Century, introduction by Jiří Machalický, reprofoto by Roman Maleček, 325 p., Association of Czech Graphic Artists Hollar, Prague 1997, ISBN 80-902405-0-X.

Encyclopaedias, dictionaries

 * Dictionary of Czech writers : an attempt to reconstruct the history of Czech literature 1948–1979. Jiří Brabec (ed.) et al., Sixty-Eight Publishers, Toronto 1982, ISBN 0-88781-128-0
 * Dictionary of banned authors 1948–1980. Jiří Brabec, Jan Lopatka, Jiří Gruša, Petr Kabeš, Igor Hájek; index compiled by Aleš Zach, 349 p., Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, Prague 1991, ISBN 80-04-25417-9
 * SČUG Hollar 1917-1992 : contemporary graphics. František Dvořák et al., 128 p., Union of Czech Artists and Graphic Designers Hollar, Prague 1992, Text in English and German. Variant titles SČUG Hollar / SČUG Hollar 1917-1992 : contemporary graphic art / SČUG Hollar 1917-1992 : zeitgenössische Graphik.
 * Graphics : Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Czech Graphic Art of the Eighties, 255 p., Concept and introductory text by Simeona Hošková, Central European Gallery and Publishing House, Prague 1993 (Concurrent text and subtitle in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish), ISBN 80-901559-0-1
 * New encyclopedia of Czech visual arts. N-F. Ed. Anděla Horová (ed.), 623 p., Academia, Prague 1995, ISBN 80-200-0536-6
 * Dictionary of Czech and Slovak Visual Artists 1950–2003. XI. Pau-Pop. Alena Malá (ed.), 252 p., Chagall Art Centre, Ostrava 2003, ISBN 80-86171-16-7