Though she's considered by many to be the only Czech representative of New Realism, as well as the first Czech artist to work with gender-based ideas, Bűla Kolá˝ová has largely been overshadowed by her husband Ji˝í Kolá˝, the poet, collage artist and member of the influential Group 42 who died in 2002. Still producing art at the age of 83, Kolá˝ová is finally getting her due with an extensive retrospective at the National Gallery's VeletrĎní palác.

When she started working in photography, Kolá˝ová found inspiration in seemingly mundane objects and activities, and rebelled against the documentary phenomenon of that time, exemplified by the vast 1955 "Family of Man" exhibition curated by Edward Steichen. One of her earliest cycles, "Imprints," involved the use of "artificial negatives," silver gelatin prints of objects on a coat of paraffin resting on cellophane and solarized, resulting in an overexposed silhouette on a black background. Similar in method to images made by avant-garde master Man Ray, these differ in their subject matter, portraying simple objects like poppy seeds, feathers, hair and vegetables. The "Imprints" cycle as well as "Vegétages," both from 1961, show Kolá˝ová's keen eye for texture and the spectrum of gray that can be achieved through the manipulation of light.

Kolá˝ová's continued experiments with various media include a series of "de-realized portraits" of significant figures in literature and art. With the use of photo-montage and photo-rollage, Bohumil Hrabal becomes blurred by blocks of floral patterns, Samuel Beckett appears in waves of gray, and Eugenň Ionesco's head floats behind a faintly checked background.

Convinced by the mid-1960s that photography's potential had been exhausted by all methods, Kolá˝ová abandoned the lens in favor of assembled arrangements, and in so doing proved her strong understanding of French New Realism while expanding upon current trends in geometric art. Through her use of everyday objects, structured patterns and sociological themes, Kolá˝ová added meaning and layers to the topical Czechoslovak geometric art movement.

Her assembled arrangements and "swatches" include pieces such as Alphabet of Objects, a framed box encasing 26 varying shapes constructed out of screws, thumbtacks, bottle caps and coins, as well as arrangements of walnut shells, hair and beer-bottle caps.

The pieces Cleopatra — assembled out of bright costume jewelry, and Dido, made from black and gold beads — mark the first signs of Kolá˝ová's gender-inspired themes. While her previous works often included feminine objects such as hairpins, buttons and fasteners, these pieces mark a shift, raising deeper questions about female representation.

One of the first signs of color in this cycle is the Swatch of Technical Parts (Homage to Wassily Kandinsky), illustrating the artist's gratitude and respect to the groundbreaking Russian abstractionist. Nods to other artists and their work appear throughout Kolá˝ová's career in provocative and sometimes uncharacteristic pieces, such as Sleeping Venus, in which a lock of hair rests atop a print of Giorgione's famous work of the same name, and The Birth of Adam, which implements eggshells, razors and thimbles to form a collage atop a reproduction of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam.

Tributes to masters of literature appear in her first collaborations with her husband in the 1980s. Ode to a Theme on Verlaine is an assemblage of green glass resting on a chiasmage by Kolá˝, and Two Tercets After Dante is made in a similar form using mirrors.

These collaborations seem aligned with her more emotional themes from the 1970s. Emptiness, from 1971, is an arrangement of red plastic paper clips with a void in the middle, showing that the use of everyday materials in a work need not exclude emotional resonance. Similarly, her cycle of arrangements of fasteners tells a human story — from Scattered, which is like an optical illusion with no structured pattern, to Peaceful, in which the fasteners are arranged in an orderly and attractive fashion.

By tapping into issues that were being discussed in feminist circles at the time, Kolá˝ová opened the door to meaningful gender-based art. Her 1975 piece Mary and Eve references the classic virgin/whore idea that feminist theory has tried to eradicate for decades. The work includes two framed boxes, one for each biblical icon, with corresponding color palette and accessories — Mary is associated with neutral tones, natural hair and pearls, while Eve rebels with bright color, dyed blond locks and beads. Despite the seriousness of many of these explorations, the artist also employs humor specific to women in pieces such as Week Repeating Itself Moment after Moment, a calendar of repetitive makeup palettes outlining a woman's weekly schedule.