Toyen turns 120

Hard to believe, but Toyen, the subject of my book Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020) turns 120 today. Toyen was born at 6pm Central European time, so this post will go up just a little bit before that.

Toyen was born in Prague (or technically Smíchov, which wasn't yet incorporated into Greater Prague then) and joined the avant-garde Devětsil group in 1923 with her friends the fellow artists Jindřich Štyrský and Remo. She and Štyrský later became founding members of the Prague surrealist group; they were among the most significant Czech artists of the first half of the twentieth century, a period when Czechoslovakia was a hotbed of artistic, literary, theatrical, and musical creativity. While Štyrský did not survive the Second World War (his health was poor), Toyen helped hide a surrealist of Jewish descent, Jindřich Heisler, from the Nazis and the two later moved to Paris to join the surrealist group there.

You can listen to a New Books Network podcast episode in which John Raimo interviews me about Toyen. I'll also be presenting a paper on Toyen at the 2022 SECAC conference in October.

Talk on Toyen at the High Street Gallery Today!

Yes, I've still got events happening for Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic! This evening at 7pm I'll be giving a talk about Toyen at the High Street Gallery in Dayton, Ohio, home of the Dayton Society of Artists.

Copies of both books will be available for sale at the talk.

Zoom Talk on Toyen is Today!

Don't forget, I'll be on Zoom again today, with a talk on the Czech surrealist artist Toyen sponsored by Společnost pro queer paměť (Prague Pride), Czech Fulbright, and CRAACE (Continuity/Rupture: Art and Architecture in Central Europe 1918-1939) More info on Facebook here.

Time shown on Facebook is the time in your own time zone, so for example it's at 6:30 p.m. in Central Europe and 12:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Dr. Karla Huebner, author of Magnetic Woman:Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), will discuss this gender-ambiguous Czech surrealist artist, who was born Marie Čermínová (1902–80). Toyen’s early life in Prague made it possible to become a force in three avant-garde groups—Devětsil, Prague surrealism, and Paris surrealism—and also to emphasize erotic themes in many works of visual art. Dr. Huebner will focus on Toyen's construction of gender and eroticism in relation to the artist's historical context as a gender nonconforming person and probable sexual minority during the First Republic.

Karla Huebner will present her book in discussion with Anna Hájková. The event takes place in English; q&a will be held in both Czech and English.

Karla Huebner is a professor of Art History at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, whose research focuses on Czech modernism, feminism and gender, surrealism, and visual culture.
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Dr. Karla Huebner, autorka monografie "Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic" (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), promluví o genderově ambivalentní české surrealistické malířce Toyen, vlastním jménem, vlastním jménem Marii Čermínové (1902-1980). Tato umělkyně se v mládí stala významnou postavou avantgardní skupiny Devětsil a surrealistických kruhů v Praze i Paříži a v mnoha výtvarných dílech zdůrazňovala erotická témata. Dr. Huebner se zaměří na konstrukci genderu a erotiky v dílech Toyen ve vztahu k jejímu historickému kontextu coby genderově nonkonformní osoby a pravděpodobně příslušnice sexuální menšiny za první republiky. Dr. Karla Huebner svou knihu představí v debatě s Annou Hájkovou. Tato debata proběhne v angličtině, následná debata s publikem o jeho otázkách v angličtině i češtině.

Karla Huebner je profesorkou dějin umění na Wright State University v Daytonu (Ohio). Ve svém bádání se zaměřuje na modernitu, feminismus a gender v českém prostředí, jakož i n a surrealismus a vizuální kulturu.

Zoom Talk on Toyen on Wednesday!

This Wednesday I'll be on Zoom again, with a talk on the Czech surrealist artist Toyen sponsored by Společnost pro queer paměť (Prague Pride), Czech Fulbright, and CRAACE (Continuity/Rupture: Art and Architecture in Central Europe 1918-1939) More info on Facebook here.

Time shown on Facebook is the time in your own time zone, so for example 6:30 p.m. in Central Europe and 12:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Dr. Karla Huebner, author of Magnetic Woman:Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), will discuss this gender-ambiguous Czech surrealist artist, who was born Marie Čermínová (1902–80). Toyen’s early life in Prague made it possible to become a force in three avant-garde groups—Devětsil, Prague surrealism, and Paris surrealism—and also to emphasize erotic themes in many works of visual art. Dr. Huebner will focus on Toyen's construction of gender and eroticism in relation to the artist's historical context as a gender nonconforming person and probable sexual minority during the First Republic.

Karla Huebner will present her book in discussion with Anna Hájková. The event takes place in English; q&a will be held in both Czech and English.

Karla Huebner is a professor of Art History at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, whose research focuses on Czech modernism, feminism and gender, surrealism, and visual culture.
*******************
Dr. Karla Huebner, autorka monografie "Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic" (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020), promluví o genderově ambivalentní české surrealistické malířce Toyen, vlastním jménem, vlastním jménem Marii Čermínové (1902-1980). Tato umělkyně se v mládí stala významnou postavou avantgardní skupiny Devětsil a surrealistických kruhů v Praze i Paříži a v mnoha výtvarných dílech zdůrazňovala erotická témata. Dr. Huebner se zaměří na konstrukci genderu a erotiky v dílech Toyen ve vztahu k jejímu historickému kontextu coby genderově nonkonformní osoby a pravděpodobně příslušnice sexuální menšiny za první republiky. Dr. Karla Huebner svou knihu představí v debatě s Annou Hájkovou. Tato debata proběhne v angličtině, následná debata s publikem o jeho otázkách v angličtině i češtině.

Karla Huebner je profesorkou dějin umění na Wright State University v Daytonu (Ohio). Ve svém bádání se zaměřuje na modernitu, feminismus a gender v českém prostředí, jakož i n a surrealismus a vizuální kulturu.

Magnetic Woman Expands its International Reach

Through the magic of Worldcat, and the Polish NUKAT (Union Catalog of Polish Research Libraries), I see that a copy of Magnetic Woman can now be found in Łódź at the Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego!

This is in addition to library copies in the British Isles (Maynooth, Fife, London), elsewhere in continental Europe (Paris, Leioa in Spain's Basque country, Barcelona, Lausanne, Berlin, Stockholm, Munich, Heidelberg, Würzburg, Zürich), and Wellington, New Zealand. This is in addition to copies at many US university and public libraries and one in Montreal.

While I've sent copies to a good many Czech institutions, apparently none of them report to Worldcat.

If your library doesn't yet have Magnetic Woman, do ask them to order it! You can point out that it is a prize-winning study of a fascinating gender-ambiguous surrealist. And if you've read it, please consider reviewing it, whether for a scholarly journal or on Amazon or Goodreads!

Spread the word about Toyen and Czech surrealism!

One More Day to Get MAGNETIC WOMAN on Sale

Don't forget, University of Pittsburgh Press is having a 30% off sale on all titles through January 9, 2022! This means you can order Magnetic Woman: Toyen and the Surrealist Erotic for just $70. Go to https://upittpress.org/books/9780822946472/ and in your order use the code PITTBOOKS. But hurry, the sale is nearly over!

Get Magnetic Woman on Sale!

Guess what! University of Pittsburgh Press is having a 30% off sale on all titles! This means you can order Magnetic Woman for just $70 until January 9, 2022. Go to https://upittpress.org/books/9780822946472/ and in your order use the code PITTBOOKS.

MAGNETIC WOMAN wins the 2021 Czechoslovak Studies Book Prize

I'm so pleased to report that Magnetic Woman has won the biennial Czechoslovak Studies Association book prize! It is a huge honor. I also want to salute Anna Hájková, whose The Last Ghetto is the Honorable Mention.

Launching Magnetic Woman with ISSS on Wednesday!

While it's true that Magnetic Woman was officially published a year ago and has actually been available for most of 2021, the book hasn't had an official launch until now. (Normally, we would almost certainly have done a launch event at the 2020 ASEEES conference, but the conference ended up being virtual and there was no University of Pittsburgh Press book display for me to sign books at and offer passers-by champagne.) So instead, the International Society for the Study of Surrealism (ISSS) is hosting a Zoom launch this coming Wednesday, where I will read portions of the book and all the scholars of surrealism will (schedules permitting) be on hand to ask questions.

CORRECTED TIMES: It's at 7:30 p.m. GMT (8:30 BST) on Wednesday, October 27, which for North Americans translates to 3:30 EDT, 2:30 CDT, 1:30 MDT, and 12:30 PDT. Here's where to see more info and register to attend. It's free.

And, by the way, there's more good news to come...

Yes, There's a Big Toyen Retrospective

Those who follow matters surreal or Czech or artistic closely might be aware that there is a major Toyen retrospective currently on view in Prague. It's called, bilingually, Toyen: Snící rebelka / Toyen: The Dreaming Rebel, and it is curated by Anna Pravdová, Annie Le Brun, and Annabelle Görgen-Lammers.

Naturally, back when the show was in the planning stages, there was no reason to imagine that a global pandemic would hit a year before the opening and still be afflicting world health and world travel in 2021. I hate to think how the curators and their colleagues must have agonized during the past year, wondering whether the show would indeed open on time in April or what. Publishing a book during a pandemic is stressful enough, but the uncertainties of book launching and promotion certainly pale in comparison to the anxieties surrounding putting together a large multi-venue exhibition.

Fortunately, the show did open, but with very limited attendance allowed due to health restrictions. I spent most of my summer break waiting to see if the Czech Republic would let in American tourists, and as soon as I got the good word, I was booking my flight. I was afraid that if I didn't book right away and leave as soon as possible, the pandemic might go wild again (which it already pretty much has, although I think it is still possible to fly from the US and be allowed into the Czech Republic).

My stay in Prague was extremely short and coincided with some insanely humid weather (cool temperatures that were nonetheless scarcely bearable due to the humidity) which I'm sure connected to the terrible rains and flooding in western Germany. However, I did get to see the exhibition twice, as well as going to a few other things and meeting up with a very small number of people. I can also report that although the Czech Republic has its anti-vaxxers, the population of Prague was very diligent about masking in indoor spaces, which was a relief after so much neglect of masking back in the US.

In any case, the exhibition was absolutely gorgeous, beautifully displayed. Totally worth seeing more than once! Of course, as a Toyen scholar I did have some criticisms, which you can learn about in my review of the show for the CRAACE website's blog (CONTINUITY/RUPTURE: ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN CENTRAL EUROPE 1918-1939), but for the most part they don't relate to the experience of viewing the art.

So if you can see this show when it moves on to Hamburg or Paris, by all means do so. I also heard (long ago) that it would come to Chicago, but I haven't been able to verify that that is still going to happen. Let's hope so.

National Gallery Prague, Waldstein Riding School, 9 April to 22 August 2021 (sold out)
Hamburger Kunsthalle, 24 September 2021 to 13 February 2022
Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 25 March to 24 July 2022

Two Zoom Talks on Toyen in One Week!

Two organizations--the San Francisco Public Library and the Czech Center in New York--kindly invited me to do full-length Zoom talks for them on Toyen. By chance, they ended up being just three days apart, so it was important to make sure they were different from one another, especially as the talks are now available long-term on YouTube. Both talks were well attended live and there were many excellent audience questions at each one.

The talk hosted by the Czech Center took place August 5th, and focused on the major Toyen retrospective that is currently on view in Prague (closing August 22nd but sold out). The show will move on to Hamburg, Germany, and to Paris, so additional viewers will get to see it in those cities.

The talk hosted by the San Francisco Public Library took place August 8th, and addressed more of the topics covered in Magnetic Woman. I'm thrilled to report that the Library has purchased no fewer than ten copies of Magnetic Woman, which must surely rank them as the best place in the world to find a library copy!

The Czech Center video is about one hour long and the SFPL video is closer to an hour and a half.

Get Hooked on Magnetic Woman

Lots and lots has been happening, particularly regarding publicity for Magnetic Woman! More details soon, but let's see if I can successfully add the San Francisco Public Library's one-minute YouTube "Get Hooked on" video for the book.

How Do Libraries Get Books?

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at libraries--how purchasing choices are made and how books, especially e-books, come to be available? Author Maggie Lynch writes about The Importance of Library Distribution on her blog and notes that with the pandemic, libraries have adapted to changes in demand by providing stronger e-book offerings. As a reader who waited until the pandemic to get a Kindle, I can attest to my public library's growing interest in e-books!

Now, speaking of e-books, you may wonder whether Magnetic Woman is available as an e-book. The answer is, unfortunately, no. Rights for the art for e-book editions would have been even more expensive than what I had to pay (that's me, the author, not my publisher!) for print rights. Besides which, do you really want to read an art history book on a screen if you can read it on paper? Probably not, although I do think it would be nice to have a copy handy on an e-reader for travel.

Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands

New books are coming out in profusion! Here's another title of interest: Prague and Beyond: Jews in the Bohemian Lands, edited by Kateřina Čapková and Hillel J. Kieval. While you may need to wait to get the hardcover, it looks like the e-book is already available.

I'm being very quick-and-dirty about posting this as I'm in the middle of the annual Czech and Slovak Studies Workshop, hosted by University of Pittsburgh this year. It's free to sign up and attend and continues through Sunday.

Prague: Belonging in the Modern City

I'm pleased to report that fellow Czech specialist Chad Bryant's new book Prague: Belonging in the Modern City will be out in May. In Prague, belonging has often been linked to a sense of nation. Grand medieval buildings and national monuments emphasize a glorious, shared history. Governmental architecture has melded politics and nationhood. Yet not all inhabitants have been included in this nurturing of national belonging. Socialists, dissidents, Jews, Germans, and Vietnamese have all been subjected to persecution in their home city.

In this book, Chad "tells the stories of five marginalized individuals who, over the last two centuries, forged their own notions of belonging in one of Europe’s great cities." Though not famous people, their lives are revealing, speaking to "tensions between exclusionary nationalism and on-the-ground diversity." This aspiring guidebook writer, German-speaking newspaperman, Bolshevik carpenter, actress of mixed heritage coming of age during the Communist terror, and Czech-speaking Vietnamese blogger all "struggle against alienation and dislocation, forging alternative communities in cafes, workplaces, and online. While strolling park paths, joining political marches, or writing about their lives, these outsiders came to embody a city that, on its surface, was built for others."

I'm eager to read this! We can pre-order here.

I do an Interview about Magnetic Woman

Clifford Garstang has begun a wonderful series of short interviews with authors of new books, and I'm thrilled to say that he has included an interview with me about Magnetic Woman! Check it out--and be sure to take a look at his interviews with other authors as well. You'll probably see more than one book you'd like to read!

Clifford Garstang is the author of five works of fiction including the novels Oliver’s Travels and The Shaman of Turtle Valley and the short story collections House of the Ancients and Other Stories, What the Zhang Boys Know, and In an Uncharted Country. He is also the editor of the acclaimed anthology series, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet.

Author Copies Arrive!

Finally, finally, finally, after the disappointment of the printing errors, the corrected, perfected print run of Magnetic Woman is definitely available and out there in the world and I have received my author copies! Now to package them up and send them to the various museums and organizations that gave me images in exchange for a copy or two of the book... and of course the copy to send to my immediate family!

Waiting and Prepping

Well, Magnetic Woman has officially been out since December, but printing errors (most of the index missing, color plates out of order) caused the book to have to be reprinted, so I am still waiting to get author copies that will be acceptable to send to the various museums and others who helped along the way. It's just hard--bad enough to have my book come out during a pandemic, but then to have to pretty much pull it from circulation and reprint...!

Meanwhile, I've been asking some fellow writers for blurbs for In Search of the Magic Theater, which should be out next summer, and I've been putting together an author website through the Authors Guild. Plus also fiddling with new novels--some of which are close to done (I want to finish at least one this summer) and some of which are just in the formative stages. I can't do a whole lot with them during the semester since with the pandemic I'm doing a lot of extra work on my remote courses, but a little bit here and a little bit there eventually adds up to finished novels.

The Museum Age in Austria-Hungary

And another intriguing book comes to fruition! The Museum Age in Austria-Hungary: Art and Empire in the Long Nineteenth Century, by Matthew Rampley, Markian Prokopovych, and Nóra Veszprémi, has just been published by Penn State University Press. This study of Austria-Hungary's public art museums considers them in the context of European museums and collecting, as well as looking at their place in the Empire's complex cultural politics. From the installation of imperial art collections in the Belvedere Palace in 1784 to the dissolution of Austria-Hungary after the First World War, and focusing on institutions in Vienna, Cracow, Prague, Zagreb, and Budapest, The Museum Age in Austria-Hungary traces museum culture over the long nineteenth century.

For more info, and to order a copy, click here.

Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art

Returning to my shout-outs to interesting and important books by friends and colleagues, I must mention Marta Filipová's recent book Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art, published by Routledge in 2020 (it actually appeared in 2019, in a reversal of the more usual phenomenon of a book coming out after its copyright date).

While I have a review of Marta's excellent book forthcoming in Austrian History Yearbook, Cynthia Paces has written a much more in-depth review in the Journal of Art Historiography than I had space for, so please take a look at that!