Vaclav Vytlacil
Vaclav Vytlacil
American, 1892 - 1984
Born in Manhattan to Czech immigrants from Podmoky, he moved with his family to Chicago at an early age. In 1906 he began studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, then returned to New York on a scholarship to the Art Students League in 1913, where he studied under portraitist John C. Johansen. He later took a teaching position at the Minneapolis School of Art and spent time in Europe, working as an assistant to Hans Hofmann and studying the Cubist movement.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Vytlacil taught at the Art Students League of New York, Queens College, Black Mountain College in North Carolina, the California College of Arts and Crafts, and other institutions. In 1946 he rejoined the Art Students League faculty and remained there until his retirement in 1978. He was also one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists group.
Among his many notable students were Louise Bourgeois, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Cy Twombly, and Tony Smith. Critics including Howard Devree of the New York Times ranked him alongside Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georges Braque.
His works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After his death, his daughter Anne bequeathed his Rockland County estate to the Art Students League of New York.
There are no works to discover for this record.