The beginnings

Kubíček's early works reflect the influence of the painter and graphic artist Francis Hudeček, as well as that of Group 42 with its urban civility agenda. Kubíček was inspired by urban environment, especially its appearance at night. He was attracted to the moon, which acted as a light signal in his paintings.

Working with the subject “people in the city”, Kubíček created linocuts, monotypes and drawings (especially for his cycles “People in the City”, “City Lights” and “Torchbearer”). At first he created realistic work, but during the late 50s, in his collection of India ink paintings on paper “Urban Galaxy Continents”, the artist had already begun to stylize, abstract and constructively divide and segment his work.

Several years later he created a series of oil paintings and pastels depicting his hometown Kolín, where the morphology was transformed: the form was broken and abstracted, urban landscape had highlighted divisions.

He created a separate group of works during summer visits to Slovakia. There he painted in the open air, using both dry and oily pastels, drawings and oil paintings depicting the Slovak countryside, villages and toiling villagers.

At the turn of the 60s, Kubíček formed cast lacquers in the spirit of informalism. He used combined techniques, sometimes adding sand to the paint, at other times washing surfaces with thinner. He didn't hesitate to use innovative techniques. In this way, and in a style that typically resembled “drip painting”, he created a series of covers for the magazine Umění a Řemesla (Arts and Crafts).