Devětsil

With its keen interest in artistic and literary movements beyond Czechoslovakia, the artists' collective Devětsil ("Butterbur"; literally "New Forces") established itself as the most influential group of the country's avant-garde. Devětsil was founded in 1920 under the official name Umělecký svaz Devětsil ("Artists' Union Devětsil") and consisted of young poets, painters, architects, writers and critics. The artistic work of the grouping was diverse, but it focused primarily on a new proletarian art, magic realism, as well as the poetism that developed around the group of artists.