Anna Zemánková

Anna Zemánková (1908-1986) was a self-taught Czech artist. In the early 1960s, at the age of over fifty, she took up artistic practice for the first time when suffering from depression. It was in the early pre-dawn hours between four and seven o'clock, in silence and solitude, and before devoting herself to domestic duties, when she created her bizarre and mystical herbarium of flowers and plants on paper. Characteristic of her work is a phenomenally complex combination of ink, pastel, perforations, and textile threads, creating a feverish and ominously beautiful botanical world of shapes. Anna Zemánková received recognition for her art, particularly among fellow artists. although it was difficult to exhibit publicly when Czechoslovakia was under Soviet influence. Works by Anna Zemánková were exhibited the seminal exhibition „Outsiders,“ curated by Roger Cardinal and Victor Musgrave, in 1979 at the Hayward Gallery in London. In 1987, a year after her death, the Serpentine Gallery in London showed her work in a group exhibition. Her work is represented in major collections such as the Prinzhorn Collection (Germany), the Collectie De Stadshof (Netherlands), and Jean Dubuffet’s Collection de l'Art Brut in Lausanne (Switzerland).