Jiří Anderle, Soldier, 1980, drypoint, mezzotint and collage; recipient of the Grand Prix, 14th International Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 1981. Grand Prize 1955–1981, accompanying exhibition, 15th International Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana, 1983.
The retrospective exhibition showed works by all the artists that received the Grand Prize at the Biennial of Graphic Arts between 1955 and 1981, that is: Armin Landeck (1955), Henri-Georges Adam (1957), Pierre Soulages (1959), Yozo Hamaguchi (1961), Robert Rauschenberg (1963), Victor Vasarely (1965), Antoni Tàpies (1967), Janez Bernik (1969), Kosuke Kimura (1971), Miroslav Šutej (1973), Akira Matsumoto (1975), Tetsuya Noda (1977), Adriena Šimotová (1979) and Jiří Anderle (1981). Most artists were presented by ten of their prints and the exhibition included a total of 116 prints made between 1945 and 1982.
An important part of the retrospective exhibition was the presentation of ten prints made between 1979 and 1982 by Jiří Anderle, the receiver of the Grand Prize at the 14th International Biennial of Graphic Arts. He received the Grand Prize for his Illusion and Reality prints. In this extensive cycle, he expressively and ironically awakened the painful experiences of people from World War One on. He was inspired by old photographs, which appear in his prints as collages. The exhibition also showed works from two more of his cycles – Fragments and Apocalyptic Genetics. With their exaggerations, deformations, glorifications and irony, the works of these cycles are unique visions that stand as reminders and cautions about the future of humanity.