The beginning of the nineteen sixties was a very decisive period in the development of Zdeněk Sýkora’s creativity. His decade of landscape painting ends, whose peak was the series Gardens (1958 – 1960). Afterwards his paintings progressively lose their dependence on pictured reality and become innovative abstract compositions (1960 – 1962), whose theme is “simply” the search for relationships between shapes and colours. Initially circular forms of these compositions as remnants of organic shapes derived from nature are progressively geometricized, squares, triangles, polygons emerge. Through continuous editing and refinement of the relationships of colours and shapes and with the help of a palette knife, impasto emerges. However, the colourfulness of the paintings transforms – from fauvistic overtones through the brown tones of umber and towards the reduction to neutral colours: black, white and grey, which are complemented by pure colours, for example red or blue. Early paintings in conjunction with their strong signature transform into something smooth. All of these simultaneously occurring processes have their origin, as the author himself says, “The transition from organic to geometric form had its roots in my growing attempts to exclude any subjective distortion. This also corresponded to the brushwork-free fl at colour geometric surfaces that made it possible to reveal more objectively the expressive potential of current painting media.” The author calls these paintings large-surface geometry.

Moreover, in connection with these paintings emerge his geometric studies (1961 – 1962). A majority of these works are a preparation for geometric compositions in oil, which as a rule measure 135 x 120 cm. On a sheet of paper (normally no larger than letter size paper), the author tries to define geometric forms and searches for their mutual colour relationships with the use of collages, tempera and India ink. As a rule, the resulting shapes emerge by connecting points placed along the periphery of the page using a vertical, horizontal, and diagonal network. (In 1962 Zdeněk Sýkora used the same method when he designed the black and white décor for the iron fire curtains in the Fučík Theatre in Louny.)

Some studies were never realized as paintings, for example Study for an Unrealized Composition, 1961, collage / paper, 23.8 x 19.2 cm. Furthermore they are the only documentation of paintings which no longer exist, for example Blue Squares from 1962, which measured around 200 x 135 cm and only its torso remains on the backside of another painting, there actually exists three studies – tempera / paper, 30 x 20.7 cm; tempera, collage / paper, 19.8 x 13.3 cm; tempera, collage / paper, 19.8 x 13.4 cm. On the other hand several studies exist for other geometrical compositions, for example the painting Red Arrow, 1962, oil / jute, 120 x 120 cm; Untitled, 1962, oil / canvas, 135 x 120 cm; Composition I, 1961, oil / canvas, 135 x 120 cm; The Development of Black Surfaces, 1960 – 61, oil / canvas, 98 x 65 cm. Despite this, the final painting is never the same as any of its studies. The realization of the compositions was always, even in the existence of design studies, a continual process of examination.

Zdeněk Sýkora became aware of the meaning of the geometrical compositions, and also their studies as prototypes, during an interview with Vítek Čapek in the mid-nineteen eighties in which he described his path to Structures (1962–1974), which became the main subject of his artistic exploration for more than ten years: “I found my way to Structures by gradually ‘objectifying‘ and reducing my means of expression to flat-colour geometric shapes that were balanced in every position. This sign – the element – whose colours were restricted to white, grey and black so that I could eliminate associations as much as possible, literally lent itself to be arranged, rotated and grouped. Klee’s definition of structure as a divisible, dividual system was the basis for my further work.”

Sýkora’s geometric compositions were exhibited several times. First in February of 1963 at the group exhibition MS 63 in Prague, at a time, when Zdeněk Sýkora already finished the Grey Structure in his atelier in Louny. These paintings were exhibited at all of Sýkora’s retrospectives as a continuation of the series Gardens and at the same time as a basis for Structures. On the other hand, the geometric studies were exhibited twice, but in this case only by a narrow selection. For the first time these works will be the central them of the exhibition in the White Gallery.