ALEN DIVIS (1900-1956) Man with a bunch of flowers Oil on panel, signed lower right 24.5 x 36.5 cm Alén Diviš (1900-1956) was a major Czech painter, trained in Prague in the context of Central European Symbolism and Expressionism. He moved to Paris in 1926 in a very precarious situation, and developed his own personal language, on the fringes of the avant-garde and rejecting naturalism. His work explores dark themes such as solitude, confinement, the fragile body, anxiety and ambiguous sexuality, in enclosed, oppressive interiors with repetitive configurations and elements. The bodies of his subjects - lean, rigid and sometimes deformed - raise profound questions about existence and human psychology. After a stay in the United States during the war, his painting became darker and denser. Recognition came late, after his return to Czechoslovakia in 1947. This work takes up the characteristic composition of Alén Diviš's works, but pushes it towards a more violent and tragic expression. The deformed, sexually ambiguous central figure echoes the portrait/vanity mask on the wall, a form of latent psychic double. The faded bouquet held in her hand lends the scene an atmosphere of disquieting strangeness, accentuated by a muted palette dominated by greys and ochres.