Born in 1885 and buried in 1946 alongside the greatest dignitaries of Czech culture in Vysehrad Cemetery, Václav Spála is a substantial figure in early 20th-century Czech painting. A retrospective exhibition at the Wallenstein Riding School charts the development of his vibrant and accessible body of work, which was profoundly influenced by the leading avant-garde movements of his time — Fauvism, Expressionism, and most importantly, Cubism.

All the while, Spála maintained a passionate connection with Czech folk art, integrating contemporary ways of seeing with his love of the Bohemian countryside and culture. He spent his childhood in Bohemian villages, and after moving to Prague to study at the Academy of Fine Arts and an early painting trip to the Adriatic coast, returned to these locales again and again in his painting.

In 1912 the Mánes Association of Fine Artists exhibited works by Picasso, Kirchner and Derain in Prague, which had a great influence on young Czech painters. Spála's early experiments in Cubism from 1914–1919 are somewhat clumsy. Using a palette largely limited to pinks and blues, his canvas area is evenly broken up by shaded lines, out of which emerges a partial figure.

Despite a marked similarity between his work and that of his friend Josef Capek in terms of Cubist inspiration, his work has none of the melancholy or self-conscious poeticism seen in Capek's. Spála uses Cubism as a way to tackle form and light, not as a metaphor for a disintegrating world. His landscapes and still-life paintings of bright blooming flowers are essentially joyful.

Several large paintings of rivers and rocky banks from 1927–1932 employ royal blue with touches of emerald green as their basic colors. The landscape is rendered vivid and fresh. There is a sense of bright, sparkling light amid flourishing and energized nature. Blocks of single color made with wide, bold brushstrokes are arranged together tightly, creating a buzzing, jostling whole.

In On Otava River Before the Storm (Mill on Otava) from 1929, the tones are both bright and dark. Blue, crimson and lime green make the scene appear vividly wet and humid. A bright red base color seeps through a top layer of darker blues and greens. The result is luscious and heavy, presenting nature as something scented and exotic.

A small portion of the exhibition is dedicated to Spála's very respectable early portrait paintings. Done in a more traditionally representative style, they show considerable expression in the faces. A series of family portraits from 1904–08 present both his mother and father as dignified and intelligent; his brother and sister are softer in expression.

Some of Spála's charming wooden toys designed for the Artel company are also on display. Simple, stylized shapes representing animals and human figures are painted in bright colors and elemental patterns — Czech folk art with a delicate modernist twist. The artist's admiration for traditional crafts is also represented by a small collection of exquisite hand-painted ceramics and woven fabrics that were in Spála's possession. These additions illuminate further sources of influence on his painting.

The exhibition's title, "Between Avant-Garde and Livelihood," expresses how Spála drifted in and out of favor with the establishment. He was expelled from the Prague Academy of Arts; became a member of various avant-garde Czech art groups; and was denounced as "perverted" by the protectorate minister of culture during the Nazi occupation. Yet at the height of his career, he was appointed chairman of the prominent Mánes Association of Fine Artists. This dualism can also be traced in his works, which apply experimental techniques to traditional subject matter.