NEVA Yevhen

Yevgen Neva (1914-1967) - Junior Representative "Generation 1909", a large group of Czechoslovak artists who laid the foundations of contemporary art of the country. The main feature of the artistic program generation, formation of which occurred during the First World War, was following the traditions of French impressionism and post-impressionism. Art of Cezanne and Renoir, Derain and Matisse had been their main artistic and ideological background. Childhood and adolescence Evgena Nevala held in LiptovskцҐ Mikulц?е? - Slovak major industrial center. Eugene-schoolboy enjoys drawing, trying to paint in oils, is interested in the history of art. His favorite masters - Paul Cezanne and the German expressionist Georg Gross. Future artist from his early years was well informed in matters of art: none of the art magazines, appearing in Mikulц?е?, did not stay out of his sight.
. After graduating from high school, Neva, to address the family moved to Prague where he entered the Medical Faculty of the University Karpova
. For two years studying at university, he managed to dive into the cultural life of the capital, constant visits to art galleries, . exhibitions, . Libraries broaden my horizons boys, . made the final decision to abandon the chosen parents medical profession.,

. Yevgen Neva come to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague
. From 1936 to 1939 he studied in the class of Professor Willi Nowak. In 1937, the amateur painter for the first time gets to Paris, where in those days, held the World Exhibition. Alive, first-hand acquaintance with the latest achievements of the French and world art, he knows more from reproductions, made a strong impression on Nevala. Since then, the fascination Derain, with its dusky color and a colorful range of severe, followed by interest in the life-affirming decorative Matisse. After Matisse Neva is drawn to the theme of the interior, which enters the female figures. One of the first works of the artist - "Reading the girl at the window" (1937, Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava) - points directly to the influence of the famous French master. Throughout art female figure, often nude, surrounded by the familiar everyday situation will remain a central motif of the paintings Nevala.

. Last year the artist's training at the Academy was marked by the tragic events of European history for
. Autumn of 1938 was held infamous "Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia was divided into two puppet state: Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the clerical-fascist Slovak state. With the majority of classmates-Slovaks Neva was forced to stay in Prague. The horrors of war, the death of millions of people, deportation of civilians to concentration camps (which the artist helped to avoid a lucky break) do not leave him indifferent. One of the researchers of creativity Nevala noted that the works of the artist, the former singer of the "poetry of silence" during the war, heard "the cry of tragedy."

. In 1943 Neva creates canvas "Lidice", expressing their own civic protest against the barbarous Nazi destruction of Czech village razed to the ground after the assassination of Gauleiter Czech Heydrich
. Expressionistic scene is interpreted by the ruins of a crucified on the cross in the foreground on the left and two sad figures of mourners seated on the right - to withstand in the green-brown. Equally dramatic and expressive, and other songs of the war years: "The Dream of Jacob" (1942), "Killed" (1943), "Still Life on the war. Still Life with a map and a skull "(1944).

In 1945, the artist returns to his native Slovakia. Darkened during the war palette of a painter, departed from the sphere of personal experiences to the topic of human tragedy, brightens, becoming once again a happy and major. Heroines of his postwar paintings - women, especially dancers. Interest in the dance world in many ways came from the artist under the influence of his wife, ballerina. Neva intently studying the art of ballet, but soon it becomes even a member of a professional ballet jury. His painting "In the dressing room," "Rest ballerinas", "Spring Afternoon", with their purely decorative solution, monumental in its own way, imbued with a sense of joy of life.

. Neva, always trying to organically combine drawing with color and volume, with the second half of the 40-ies is fond of drawing
. The technique of drawing and lithographs, monotypes and dry point, he continues to develop a favorite motif of the naked female body. In the early 50-ies of the artist draws ornamental national costume. Traditional motifs are a new impulse to create interesting composition and color palette in the paintings and graphic works.

. Yevgen Neva, active, creative and social activity which in the late 1950's has suspended a serious illness, brought to the art traditions of Slovak post-impressionism, and especially Fauvism
. During the last largely shaped the artistic style of masters, paintings and graphic works which are always different, almost classical harmony, harmony and lyrical meditations on the beauty of man. "