Isolation and Death
In 1936 Matulka helped found the American Abstract Artists, but refused to join the group. His emotional state continued to decline, even more so when his sister Barbara killed herself on July 5. By the time his association with the Federal Art Project ended in 1939 he had become even more socially and emotionally isolated. He continued painting more and more experimental works.
Over the next few decades Matulka received much acclaim from his exhibitions, but remains relatively withdrawn from society. As age caught up with him, he suffered from many health issues, including deafness. Matulka died June 25, 1972 in New York City.
Read more about this topic: Jan Matulka
Famous quotes containing the words isolation and/or death:
“One who shows signs of mental aberration is, inevitably, perhaps, but cruelly, shut off from familiar, thoughtless intercourse, partly excommunicated; his isolation is unwittingly proclaimed to him on every countenance by curiosity, indifference, aversion, or pity, and in so far as he is human enough to need free and equal communication and feel the lack of it, he suffers pain and loss of a kind and degree which others can only faintly imagine, and for the most part ignore.”
—Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)
“Tear out the close vermiculate crease
Where death crawled angrily at bay.”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)