Rabas, Václav

Born Nov. 13, 1885, in Krušovici, near the city of Rakovník; died Oct. 26, 1954, in Prague. Czech landscape painter. People’s Artist of Czechoslovakia (1945).

Rabas attended the Academy of Arts in Prague from 1906 to 1913. His paintings retain the realistic traditions of Czech art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, yet at the same time they reflect an awareness of the latest art movements, including fauvism and cubism. His paintings are particularly reminiscent of the realism of M. Aleš. Rabas painted poetic, generalized views of his native landscape (for example, Spring Landscape, 1930; Land, 1934; and The Czech Song, 1947—all in the National Gallery in Prague). Rabas received the State Prize of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1953.