Wiškovský, Eugen

Eugen Wiškovský (1888 Dvůr Králové nad Labem – 1964 Prague)

A Shadow (A Coil Spring Insulator), 1933–1935

black and white photograph, 294×234 mm, Olomouc Museum of Art, inv. no. F 4076

Eugen Wiškovský, a Czech amateur photographer, was a prominent representative of the interwar avant-garde. In seemingly non-aesthetic and technical objects (insulator, corrugated sheet, screw, etc.) he found interesting and impressive shapes, the effect of which he emphasized with elaborated cuts, changes of scale and work with light. His photographs of a functionalist power plant in Kolín, where he used innovative processes and the knowledge of  László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) and Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (1891–1956) regarding views from below or dynamically diagonal, became famous.

Štěpánka Bieleszová