Josef Martinec

Josef Martinec (1927-2012) was a lifelong artist, especially a landscape painter, living in Rychnov nad Kněžnou. He loved the region of the foothills of the Orlické Mountains, where he would go out in all seasons with a sketchbook or canvas to the plein air and capture a plethora of motifs of the local landscape. At home, he would return to his sketches, often only fleeting, and transfer and elaborate them on canvases or sololith. His way of expressing and capturing traditional landscape motifs is mostly a typical artistic shortcut - with quick brushstrokes, many moments in the painting are only hinted at. Josef Martinec graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Prague with a degree in pedagogy, focusing, among other things, on art. Here he studied under the guidance of Prof. Cyril Bouda, Karel Lidicke, M. Saltzman and others. Professionally, he devoted his entire life to teaching and guiding pupils in the field of art education. During his lifetime he realized a number of exhibitions of his work, mostly in the region of East Bohemia. He was a member of the Union of Visual Artists in Hradec Králové.