Frantisek Kupka

Czech painter, active France
Czech, (1871–1957)
Pioneer of abstract painting in Europe. From 1887 until 1891 he studied at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts and at the Vienna Bildenden Künste 1892-1893. Influenced by the painter and philosopher Karl Diefenbach. Settled in Paris in 1895 and earned his living as an illustrator and cartoonist. He continued to illustrate books as he developed a separate abstract painting style that emerged out of Symbolism. Along with Robert Delaunay and Kandinsky, he developed a non-objective style preoccupied with musical rhythym and color. Kupka was interested in optics, physiology, and anthropology. Guillaume Apollinaire coined the term Orphism around 1912 in response to the work of Kupka, Francis Picabia, Robert Delaunay, and others who were developing their own response to Cubism and Futurism.