ARTIST: Jarmila Maranova (Czech Republic, New York, 1922 - 2009)
TITLE: The Castle (titled on verso)
MEDIUM: mixed media on paper. Paper applied to board.
CONDITION: Minor age toning.
ART SIZE: 8 x 6 inches / 20 x 15 cm
BOARD SIZE: 13 x 10 inches / 33 x 25 cm
SIGNATURE: unsigned
PROVENANCE: Franklin Mint Collection
LOCATION: This lot is located at our Dania Beach, FL office.
CATEGORY: old antique vintage painting for auction sale online
AD: ART WANTED: Consign, Trade In, Cash Offer
SKU#: 154228
US SHIPPING: $49 + insurance.

BIOGRAPHY:
Jarmila Maranova was a Czech artist whose work was profoundly shaped by her Jewish heritage, the trauma of the Holocaust, and the literature of Franz Kafka. Born in Prague in 1922 into an artistic family, her childhood was marked by the influence of her disabled-painter friend at her father's institute and the tragedy of her mother and sister, who perished in the Holocaust. She studied textile and glass design at Prague's School of Applied Arts during the Nazi occupation. Her career began in post-war commercial and applied arts. A defining early series, Distant Journey (late 1950s-1960s), used a child-like, expressive style to process the loss of her family in the camps. She found her most significant subject in the 1960s with Franz Kafka. Her monotypes and lithographs for Kafka's Prague and The Trial are not direct illustrations but powerful, dream-like evocations of the writer's world and the atmosphere of old Prague. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum in Prague in 1965 and internationally. Later major cycles drew on biblical themes (the Book of Job, Song of Songs) and, during the oppressive normalization period, John Amos Comenius's Labyrinth of the World, reflecting the plight of the exile. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1977, where she created further Kafka-based work for America and The Castle, winning several American graphic design awards. Maranova is recognized as a pioneering Czech artist in addressing the Holocaust and for her lifelong, extensive visual dialogue with Kafka's work. She returned to live in Prague in her final years, after decades abroad.