Toyen biography
Toyen biography
Toyen biography images...
Toyen
Czech painter (1902–1980)
For the residential area in Oslo, Norway, see Tøyen.
Toyen (born Marie Čermínová; 21 September 1902 – 9 November 1980) was a Czech painter, drafter, and illustrator and a member of the surrealist movement.
In 1923, the artist adopted the professional pseudonym Toyen. The name Toyen has been suggested to be derived from the French word 'citoyen,' meaning citizen, but it has also been proposed to be a play on the Czech expression ‘to je on’ (‘it is he’).[1][2][3] Toyen favored this gender-neutral mononym (in Czech the family name is gendered, with women's names ending in "ová") and would speak the language in the masculine singular form.[4]Vítězslav Nezval wrote that Toyen "refused...
to use the feminine endings" when speaking in the first person.[5]
Biography
Toyen left the family home at sixteen, and it has been speculated it was due to sympathy towards anarchism.[6]
In the