Riko: Seductions of an Artist

by Denise B. Dailey

A biography of a Czech artist educated in the 1920s and `30s in the most artistically revolutionary capitals of the world: Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Paris, who gets caught in the Nazi dragnet through his marriage to a Czech Jew. The story follows their double exiles, first to war-time England, and then to the United States, where they delight and despair over re-establishing Riko as a first-class artist in the radically evolving cultural decades from the `50s to the `80s.

249 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 31, 2018

Reviews

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful, intelligent read about a little know Czech artist and his wife. The couple comes alive through their trials and travels as result of the perfected and beautiful prose of Denise Dailey. The social, political and art history of the early part of the last century is seamlessly woven through the biography. A study of a complicated, driven and dedicated artist with flaws that would impinge upon his success is sensitively approached through letters and interviews and her perceptive eye for character development as well as her extraordinary skill as a writer.