About Jan Matulka
Jan Matulka was a Czech-American modern artist originally from Bohemia. Matulka's style ranged from Abstract expressionism to landscapes, sometimes in the same day. He has directly influenced artists like Dorothy Dehner, Francis Criss, Burgoyne Diller, I. Rice Pereira, and David Smith. Between 1917 and 1918 Matulka traveled around the United States and the Caribbean as the first recipient of the Joseph Pulitzer National Traveling Scholarship, painting as he went. With help from Max Weber and Václav Vytlačil Matulka landed a teaching job at the Art Students League of New York, his first salaried position. While in the Southwest he became one of the first modern artists to portray the Hopi snake rain dance. Katherine Sophie Dreier became his patron briefly from 1925 to 1926, which came to a premature end mainly due to petty disagreements and Matulka's general lack of social grace, ranging from tardiness to tantrums.
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