Anna Zemánková sold her dentistry office in the 1930s to devote herself entirely to her family. Her first son died at the age of four, and she never recovered from this tragedy. In 1960, encouraged by her family, she decided to pursue her childhood dream of being an artist. She drew before sunrise, listening to classical music, in a trancelike state. At first sight, her works recall the flower motifs embroidered on the Moravian folkloric costumes seen at various regional celebrations, or the flowers glued in herbarium books found in a number of peasant families from the nineteenth century onward. However, for Zemánková, these forms were not meant as ornaments. Her exploration seems anchored in the spiritualist traditions of the first Czech Republic—traditions that have survived despite the communist rule and the official atheism. Numerous spiritualist circles were very active in Moravia in the first half of the twentieth century, with mediums who would draw under the influence of a spiritual guide. Although Zemánková never participated in any spiritualist activity, she seemed to share its inspiration in nature. The automatic gesture of her hand, affected by vestiges of memories and experiences, created sensual half-abstract, half-figurative motifs, a metaphysical cosmology moved by invisible forces. Most of the perforated works were made in the second half of the 1960s. Using a polystyrene desk as a support, the artist punctured two layers of paper at the same time, one with a drawing and another underneath. At other times, she used a crochet hook or a satin collage (from the second half of the 1970s) to enrich her works, thus accentuating the idea of bricolage.

Adapted by Valérie Rousseau from “Anna Zemánková” by Barbara Safarova in The Hidden Art (New York: Skira Rizzoli/American Folk Art Museum, 2017), 112–117. Exhibition label for Memory Palaces: Inside the Collection of Audrey B. Heckler. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.