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Purkyne, Karel
(b Breslau [now Wroclaw, Poland], 11 March 1834; d Prague, 5 April 1868). Bohemian painter and critic of Prussian birth. He was little known as a painter in his lifetime, but he was rediscovered by the modernists at the turn of the century, who admired him for challenging the artistic conventions of his time. He was the son of the physiologist Jan Evangelista Purkyne, in whose salon he met the élite of the patriotic intelligentsia. He studied first at the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1851 under Christian Ruben (1805–75), then at private art schools in Munich (1854–5) under Johann Berdellé (1813–76), in Paris (1857) under Thomas Couture and in Vienna (1861) under Carl Rahl. This diversity of study contrasts with his abiding preoccupation with the Old Masters, especially the Italians and Rembrandt. He painted mainly portraits and still-lifes, at first partly under the influence of Bohemian Baroque painting. These works were all painted within a short period and the portraits were exclusively of his friends and relatives; most of them are now in the Prague National Gallery.
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