Page 202 - Top 10 Contemporary Artists | VoL 7

Karel Witt: Born on 8 January 1947 in Ostrava, Moravia Switzerland (eventually becoming a five-time grandfather).
(formerly Czechoslovakia), on his grandfather’s (Josef Dobes, Since 1970: IT Programmer, working mostly on mainframes
an accomplished portrait and landscape painter who survived in various programming languages, systems, databases, etc.;

six years in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, mainly while 1985-94 on a freelance basis, out of business since 2004.
being allowed to part-time paint with Josef Capek) studio This part may be seen as a mission statement and an
couch (first scent of turpentine!). My Jewish grandfather attempt to explain my motivations:
Zikmund (lawyer, Senator) is a Shoah victim. My artistic background is basically self-taught. Influenced

Defected to the West in 1950 with parents (via Nürnberg, by early perceptions of Dada philosophy, first abstract
Paris to Sydney: first three public school classes), returned paintings (Kupka), Expressionism, Surrealism (Magritte),
to Ostrava in 1956, completed Gymnasium Abitur in 1965 the post-war American Beat generation, and POP-Art.
(emphasis on Math, Physics), dropped out of Dentistry in Despite assuming that it inevitably leads to a long-distance
TOP CONTEMPOR ARY ARTISTS color images came into being). Fled with wife and parents nonconformist thinking.
1967 (always fancying drawing, my first full-dimensioned
runner’s loneliness, I am attracted to individual, wayward,

in September 1968 (after the Russian invasion) via Austria to
Abandoned the Catholic Church in 1997 due to massive

TURN BACK TIME, 2008 ACRYLIC ON CANVAS 45.6X35 IN. | 116X89 CM.

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