Czech Cubism Czech Cubism Czech Cubism (referred to more generally as Cubo-Expressionism) was an avant-garde art movement of Czech proponents of Cubism, active mostly in Prague from 1912 to 1914. Prague was perhaps the most important center for Cubism outside Paris before the start of World War One. Members of this movement realized the epochal significance of the cubism of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque and attempted to extract its components for their own work in all branches of artistic creativity: sculpture, painting, applied arts and architecture. The most notable participants in this movement were the painters František Kupka (whose interests were
Czech Cubism secessionist designers such as Otto Wagner and Jan Kotěra. Architects such as Josef Chochol and Pavel Janák devised spiritualist philosophies of design and a dynamic ideal of planar form derived from cubist art. As Cubism spread across the European continent in the early 20th century, its greatest impact can be seen today in the Czech Republic. Pyramid and crystal forms were one of the signature principles seen in Czech Cubism which was incorporated in architecture, furniture, and applied arts. The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (UPM) uses the House of the Black Madonna as a permanent exhibition space for