Poet
and photographer Jindrˇich Heisler’s career was cut short by his sudden death
at age 38, but during that brief time he produced some of the most courageous
and remarkable works of the Czech Surrealist movement. Heisler joined the
movement in 1938, just as the Nazi occupation was driving it underground.

Heisler, a Jew, refused to respond to the 1941
Nazi summons requiring non-Aryans to register with the state, and he hid in
fellow artist Toyen’s apartment for most of the war. While in hiding, Heisler
created an extraordinary series of photographic works, including Photo-graphique, which is among his most
experimental. It portrays a deformed figure, created by arranging white flour
on a black background, in a distinctly dreamlike, Surrealist style.