Hugo Táborský
Serial Abstractions

Brno artist Hugo Táborský (1911–1991) is known to culture enthusiasts for his avant-garde photographic work from the 1930s but only a small group of experts are aware of his commissioned works in graphic design avowing the international movement of so-called new or functionalist typography. His free-form painterly work comprising of series of abstract compositions from the first half of the 1930s has remained completely obscure to this day although it is remarkable even in an international context. In terms of Czech art he is closest to the series of gouaches by František Kupka from the same period called Abstractions, which was published as a whole in Prague in 1948, so that it is improbable that Táborský could have known it in the 1930s. The geometrical compositions of Táborský were created in close connection with his study at the School of Arts and Crafts in Brno and his photographic, and particularly graphic compositions, as is proven by a series of works examining compositional alternatives of the geometrical shapes of type which puts them in-between free and utilitarian work. These studies, together with purely abstract compositions, enrich the prevalent image of Czech inter-war art with a so far little represented stylistic position of serial geometrical abstraction.