Born in 1871 in a village in Bohemia, František Kupka is the first artist to exhibit an abstract painting in 1912. However, it is Kandinsky, Mondrian or Malevitch who have more generally established themselves as the pioneers of abstraction. Kupka's work is one of the most radical and ambitious of the 20th century.
The painter has nourished his art with a vast field of study ranging from botany to esotericism and the scientific discoveries of his time. It is this mixture of technical, pictorial and musical sources that led him gradually to abandon figuration in favor of detached forms of references to reality.
Solitary painter, refusing belonging to any pictorial movement in the middle of an era marked by schools and bands of artists, this film also questions the promotional strategies that make or break the reputation of an artist in this particular ecosystem that is the "world of art".
