The RADAR Group

THESIS ABSTRACT The thesis named The Radar Group deals with one of the creative groups that entered the Czech artistic scene after 1956, after the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party (SCP) in February 1956, when the establishment of minor associations within the Union of Czechoslovak Artists was allowed. The Radar Group announced its foundation in 1960 and presented its first independent exhibition in 1961. It introduced eighteen members, of whom the most significant authors from the ranks of the defunct Group 42 (Skupina 42) - František Gross, František Hudeček a Ladislav Zívr - belonged to the established artists of previous generation. The majority of younger members born between 1923 and 1930 introduced their painting, sculptural and graphical works at the exhibition mostly for the first time. The members of the Radar Group may be regarded as the representatives of so- called "tame modern art" who took up to the pre-war modernism in the loosening period of the late 1950's. Their status within the contemporary scene was very high as they were coming out of the positions shielded by the Union - most were the Union members, some even functionaries in the Union senior management. This is the reason why the group did not become a part of the opposing Block of Art Groups (Blok tvůrčích skupin), though..