Karel Havlicek was born on December 31, 1907, in Berlin, into a cultured family. In 1923, he moved with his parents to Prague, where he studied at the law faculty of the German University, graduating with a doctorate in law in 1934.

Karel Havlicek was the chief of police, but with the arrival of the communist regime, he was demoted to a subordinate position.

One day, while walking down the street, he stopped and looked up at the sky, then said to his wife, "From today on, I will make a drawing every day to thank life."

He was discovered in 1948 by Karl Teige, the great Czech art theorist and associate of the Surrealists.

His work, which most often depicts metamorphoses of faces and monstrous animals, can be interpreted as a metaphor for the communist system, whose discrimination and censorship he endured.

Like Friedrich Schröder Sonnenstern, his work lies at the intersection of Art Brut and Surrealist art.

Our gallery, in partnership with the Les Yeux Fertiles gallery, will host Havlicek's first solo exhibition in France in June 2020, accompanied by a catalogue and a film.