21 August 1930 Humpolec - 17 July 2010 Prague.

 

1941-49

He studied  at real grammar school in Havlíčkův Brod. There he learned to paint in pastel by Emanuel Mandler.

 

1949-54

Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, where he studied portrait and figural painting in a special course of Professor Vratislav Nechleba, where also attended the honorary year. From the first year he became interested in movement culture of gymnastics and dance. He used to go to the Prague gyms and theaters, where he made drawings in pencil or a pen. This was also an incentive to complement his education between 1950 and 1951 by attending lectures on anthropology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Charles University in Prague.

 

1955

After graduating from the Fine Arts in Prague, he devoted himself to systematic still life painting and static drawing. Sketches of female nudes by model – in pen, pencil, brush, ink or watercolor - remained an integral part of his work until his death.

In the second half of the 1950s he also focused on portraiture and continued to study moving female characters through various drawing techniques.

 

1960

In the 1960s, the artist's interest was focused on sketches from gyms and scenes from classical ballet. Based on many drawings and movement studies, he created oil paintings in the studio - faithful records of exercises or dances.

1960 - 90

He also worked as a painter and illustrator of medical literature at the Institute of Anatomy of the First Faculty of Medicine in Prague. Here, among others, he painted portraits of the former head of the Institute and illustrated specialized books Surgical Propedeutics and Surgery of Older Age.

 

1963

From this year on, he regularly cooperated with the magazine Taneční listy (Dance magazine).

 

1965

When drawing gymnasts he began to use another technique, namely pastel. Many pastel drawings, mostly 40 x 30 cm, were created, many of which have the character of a definite work, even though they were created on the spot in gyms.

 

1966–1971

During this period Milan Med published gymnastic drawings and paintings in American magazines The Modern Gymnast and especially Mademoiselle Gymnast. In addition to illustrations, he was given the opportunity to present his own drawings and paintings on two pages and later on the front pages of these magazines. The founder and publisher Glenn Sundby (USA, CA) published calendars with reproductions of his paintings.

 

1970

During this period he began to depict the spinning or oscillating body of a gymnast. The result is oil paintings, in which motion is broken down into several phases that evoke the illusion of dynamism, speed and power.

 

1975-78

He was registered as a full-time student at the The Faculty of Medicine of Charles University in Prague. He was engaged in research in the field of anatomy and development of human musculoskeletal system.

 

1977

Towards the end of the 1970s, in his works, he emphasized the psychological aspects of sportswomen, both concentration before the performance, tension and subsequent relaxation, and the expression of a relaxing sportswoman.

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1980 - 82

In addition to drawings and pictures of gymnasts, he painted several canvases from the ballet environment. Several nudes of watercolors and oil paintings come from this period.

 

1982

From this early 1980s, the theme of ballet began to dominate Milan Med's work, which he devoted himself exclusively to in the following decades. He used to go to the National Theater Ballet, where in the rehearsal rooms he quietly drew, sketched and captured the body in motion, recorded its individual phases and thus created a motion recording phases over time. At the moment time that is doesn’t exist any longer, the movement continues and the motion remains captured on paper or music scores.

In addition to the movement, dynamics and beauty of the ballet, the artist also captured the mental aspect, whether it be the expression of a ballet dancer in deep concentration before the performance or at the peak and tense moment of dance, on the contrary in a state of exhaustion after strenuous performance.

 

1987

As an illustrator and anatomist, he and professor Radomír Čihák, head of the Institute of Anatomy,  participated in the first two parts of the three-part textbook Anatomy. His illustrations have a didactic character and emphasize the function of the structures shown. It was the knowledge of the anatomy of the human body that he used both in nudes and portraits and in figural dynamic drawing.

 

His black-and-white iconographic dance sketches, sometimes performed on music scores, were also accompanied by publications such as the monography of choreographer Pavel Šmok "On a jump" and ballet programs of the Prague Chamber Ballet.

 

His works have been exhibited at more than 35 solo exhibitions at home and abroad.

 

The artist is represented in the collections of Strahov and Želiv Abbey, The National Gallery in Prague, The Ministry of Culture, The Gallery in Pardubice, Čáslav, Humpolec, Havlíčkův Brod, OHO Gallery in Tokyo. His paintings are also on the premises of the National Theater Ballet and the Prague Dance Conservatory. Some oil paintings, monumentally conceived figural compositions with the theme of gymnastics, are located in public buildings - in the sports hall in Forth Worth in the USA and in the sports club of Edmonton, Canada.

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