Georges Kars: The human being is the only thing that matters.

Press Release  GEORGES KARS - THE HUMAN BEING IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS October 12 - November 29, 2017   Curator: Vladimir Lekes   The exhibition has been conceived to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Kars' first retrospective exhibition, which took place in 1937 in the Mánes exhibition hall. President Beneš honored the exhibition with his visit. In the same year Georges Kars was appointed the Knight of the Legion of Honour in Paris.    A renowned Czech-French artist of Jewish origin, Kars was born in Kralupy nad Vltavou in 1880. He graduated from the Art Academy in Munich where he had studied art history and later painting, from 1899 to 1905. Since 1907, he worked mainly in Paris. There he joined the École de Paris, an international group of artists, which was formed around Pablo Picasso. Among Kars's close friends were Paul Klee, Jules Pascin, Marie Laurencin, Suzanne Valadon, Marc Chagall, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Maurice Utrillo, Juan Gris and others. In 1909 he became a member of Salon d'Automne and in 1913 a member of the Salon des Indépendants. He exhibited in a number of European countries, in Geneva, Vienna, Amsterdam, London, Barcelona, Chicago and also in the then exotic Japan, in the 1920s and 1930s. During World War II Kars lived in France, and later escaped from the Nazis to Switzerland. Suffering from the impact of The Holocaust on his family, the exhausted artist committed suicide in Geneva on February 5, 1945.