Cecilie Marková

CECILIE MARKOVÁ

b. 1911 Kyjov, Czech Lands, Austro-Hungarian Empire
d. 1998 Kyjov, Czech Republic

WORKS | BIOGRAPHY | EXHIBITIONS | PUBLICATIONS

SELECTED WORKS

BIOGRAPHY

CMport Cecilie Marková was the daughter of poor Slovakian parents. Her father, a gifted glassblower, was illiterate. She learned the hatter trade and found a job in a clothing shop in Kyjov.

Cecilie Marková lived a carefree youth, played theatre and was very enthusiastic about sports. She met the athlete Bohumil Marek in her gymnastics federation. They married in 1933. Her husband had already introduced her to a spiritualistic circle before their wedding. There Marková had her first experiences with mysterious powers and beings. On 12 October 1938 she made her first automatic drawing. She experienced this, as if invisible forces were acting on the pen and her hand and she was amazed at the idiosyncratic nervous lines that filled the sheet in irregular paths, like the bizarre record of a seismograph.

Her husband died of pneumonia in 1940. As her marriage had remained childless, Cecilie Marková found her refuge and realization in spiritualism and started her own circle. The exchange with an invisible world, which she rendered visible in her drawings, became her central purpose in life.

Initially, her drawings were characterized by jagged ornamental and meandering lines. Under the dictate of an oriental being, Cecilie Marková wrote many pages in unknown imaginative characters.

In 1942 she came into contact with angelic creatures that appeared like comets before her inner eye. While drawing, she could now clearly observe an altered state of consciousness. She was certain that she had gained access to other worlds. The angelic beings gave her a feeling of lightness, hope and joy.

Drawing was for Cecilie Marková like a ritual through which she could enter an ethereal sphere where she was not separated from her beloved husband. What she would put on paper she never knew. She always drew a sheet in one go, put it away and never worked on it a second time.

With pencils and crayons she created intriguing works in colors and forms that remain indeterminate, like on the verge of a revelation. These were eccentric, autonomous creations, reminiscent of fantastic hybrid beings made up of plants, mollusks, primeval amphibians, but which seem to dissolve into abstract forms. Once Marková wrote, "I am attracted to worlds where there are no true forms."

There were phases in which she created monochrome works, some on a black background, or works with only two sparsely used colors. They are buoyant shapes, set on paper in floating unintentional gestural movements. Some in raw broad strokes, others with finely executed halftones. Sometimes eyes or faces become visible in the flowing, energetic ornaments, rarely human figures.

EXHIBITIONS

2019 Alma: Mediums and Visionaries. Es Baluard Museum, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2/15/2019 – 6/2/2019
2017 Médiumnique tchèque: Cecilie Marková. Galerie Jean-Pierre Ritsch-Fisch, Strasbourg, France, 11/14 – 12/20/2017
2008 Cecilie Marková: Podobenství Duší. Museum of Modern Art, Olomuc, Czech Republic, 10/9/2008 – 1/4/2009
2008 Cecilie Marková: Podobenství Duší. Hodonín Gallery of Fine Arts, Hodonín, Czech Republic, 5/7/2008 – 6/29/2008
2008 Cecilie Marková: Podobenství Duší. North Bohemia Gallery of Art, Litoměřice, Czech Republic, 2/26/2008 – 4/20/2008
2008 Art Brut in the Czech Lands. Museum of Modern Art, Olomuc, Czech Republic, 6/19/2008 – 10/12/2008
2004 Tsjechische Art Brut. Musée d`Art Spontané and Centre Techèque. Brussels, Belgium, 5/17 - 6/11/2004
2002 L’Art Brut Tchèque. Halle Saint Pierre, Paris 9/2/2002 – 1/6/2003
2000 Tschechischer Surrealismus und Art Brut zum Ende des Jahrtausends. Prager Kulturtage in Wien, Palais Palffy, Vienna, Austria, 4/14 – 5/4/2000
1998 Stone Bell House, Prague, Czech Republic
1970 Danzig, Poland
1963 Prag, Czech Republic
1962 Hodonín, Czech Republic
1950 Kyjov, Czech Republic

CM BAL

Works by Cecilie Marková from CoMA (in the company of works by Nina Karasek, Josefa Tolrà and Anna Zamanková) on show at the exhibition Alma: Mediums and Visionaries. Es Baluard Museum, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2/15/2019 – 6/2/2019.

PUBLICATIONS

Cecilie Marková – Podobenství duší. Litoměřice, Hodonín, Olomouc, 2008.
Dunděra, Jiří. Insitní malířka Cecilie Marková (20. 9. 1911 v Kyjově - 21. 9. 1998 v Kyjově). Věstník Historicko-vlastivědného kroužku v Žarošicích, Žarošice : Historicko-vlastivědný kroužek č. 21, 2012, pp. 126-127.
Konečný, Pavel. Cecilie Marková: "La pittura è un rito che solo io comprendo". Osservatorio Outsider Art, 19, 2020, pp. 84–93.
Lusardy, Martine and Alena Nádvorníková (eds.). L’Art Brut Tchèque. Éditions Halle Saint Pierre, Paris, 2002.
Matyášová, Eva, Naivní malířství. Prag: Odeon, 1986.
Nádvorníková, Alena. Tsjechische Art Brut. Exhibition catalogue. Musée d`Art Spontané and Centre Techèque Bruxelle. Brussels, 2004.
Nádvorníková, Alena.Tschechischer Surrealismus und Art Brut zum Ende des Jahrtausends. Exhibition catalogue. Prager Kulturtage in Wien. Prague, 2000.
Pohribný, Arsén, Semblances of Souls. In: Cecilie Marková – Podobenství duší. Litoměřice, Hodonín, Olomouc, 2008, pp. 10–19.
Pohribný, Arsen und Stefan Tkáč. Die naive Kunst in der Tschechoslowakei. Prag: Artia, 1967, pp. 168–71.