April 12, 2021
will mark the 120th death anniversary of the artist Otakar Lebeda (1877 Prague –
1901 Malá Chuchle). Already as a student of the art academy’s landscape
painting studio headed by Julius Mařák, he painted compelling mood landscapes
during outdoor excursions to Okoř and his vacations spent in the Krkonoše Mountains.
He was also a talented illustrator and enjoyed commenting on school life
drawing caricatures. In 1897 he travelled to Paris, where he was profoundly
impacted by Impressionist paintings. He returned to France twice and settled in
the art colony at Concarneau in Brittany. In the late 1890s, Lebeda felt
depleted as a landscape artist and sought a way out of his spiritual and
artistic crisis in figurative painting. During the final months of his life he
worked on the large painting Killed by
Lightening inspired by a true event that took place in the Chodsko region.
Shortly before his 24th birthday, the artist ended his life with a revolver shot
in the woods of Malá Chuchle.
