The focal point of the image is a group of five abstractly formulated figures (assembly workers) performing their job at an assembly line...
Inventory No.: O-22
Artist: Viera Kraicová
Title: Assembly Crew
Year: 1963
Technique: oil
Material: canvas
Dimensions: 85 x 95 cm
Signature: none
The described object is a canvas with strong colour accents, clearly constructed, depicting, as its title suggests, an Assembly Crew. The focal point of the image is a group of five abstractly formulated figures (assembly workers) performing their job at an assembly line as well as the overall mood of the image that incorporates various elements of Constructivism, and maybe even Post-Cubism.
The artist disassembles the form and narrative of the image that is dominated by the colour blue and various outlines. The artist’s seemingly rationalising attitude is negated with a peculiar kind of narrative lyricism. Her painting style is spontaneous, sometimes even archetypal. She uses the power of colour to simplify and disarm. The thick contours of the outlines are filled with colour. The artwork is a part of the NG’s collection and carries characteristic features of the artist’s work of the 1960s. The whole scope of the artist’s work includes compositions that border on the abstract, expressiveness, gestures and torso-focused unidentifiable figures. The reduction of the figures leads her to creating colour-dominated signs and symbols. A simple “work image” is thus elevated to a piece of art with various possibilities of interpretation.
Viera Kraicová was born in Modra on July 5, 1920 and died in Bratislava on April 29, 2012. She studied in Bratislava and Prague. Between 1940-1944, she studied at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (under the leadership of prof. Ján Mudroch) and between 1945-1950, she attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (under the leadership of prof. Ján Želibský). At the beginning of 1950s she returns to Slovakia and works as an assistant to Ján Želibský at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. This period of her life is linked to exhibition activities related to the August 29 Group. She turns to being a freelance artist in the middle of the 1950s. An important moment in the artist’s life, that is also marked in the national art history, is the creation of a female artist community called Group 4. Some of the group’s other important female artist besides Kraicová include: Oľga Bartošíková, Jarmila Čihánková and Tamara Klimová. The community worked together between 1959-1966. Viera Kraicová’s work could be described using a single word – balance. On one hand, she focuses on gestic figures that overlap with lyrical painting, with a personal relationship with colour. On the other hand, the paintings’ compositions carry visible signs of existential constructivism the artist cloaks in layers of indistinct outlines and monochromatic colours. In the 1960s, the artist’s style adopts strong gestic features. In the 1970s, she returns back to figuralism and imagination. Her final creative period has a meditative character related to her pre-existing creative program.
Ľudmila Kasaj Poláčková