Kupka, Frank (František) (1871–1957)

Czech painter and illustrator who lived in Paris. He was a pioneer of non-representational art, his Amorpha, Fugue in Two Colours: Red and Blue 1912 (Národni Galerie, Prague) being one of the very first entirely abstract paintings.

Prompted by the theories of Seurat, he explored the expressive power of colour and the spiritual significance of forms, arriving like Kandinsky at an abstract language of ‘signs’. Kupka's multiple coloured spheres and ‘linear rhythms’ were intended to provide the visual equivalent of music. His work, together with that of Robert Delaunay, has been dubbed Orphism.