František Kupka was born in September of 1871 in Opočno, a small town in Bohemia, now a part of the Czech Republic. From 1889 to 1892, he trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague where he painted historical and patriotic themes. Kupka later attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he concentrated 
on allegorical and symbolic subjects, influenced by the works of Symbolist painter Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach. In 1904, Kupka exhibited his work at Vienna’s art association, the Kunstverein.
Kupka settled in Paris by the spring of 1894 and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts under figurative and portrait painter Jean-Pierre Laurens. Inspired by the Neo-Impressionist and Fauvist paintings he saw in Paris exhibitions, Kupka began experimenting with different styles, all while supporting himself as an illustrator of books and posters. In 1906 he exhibited for the first time at the Salon d’Automne, Paris’s annual art exhibition on the Champs-Élysées.
František Kupka’s 1909 painting “Piano Keyboard/Lake” marked a break in his representational style. His work became increasingly abstract beginning in 1910-11, reflecting his theories of color, motion and the link between music and painting. In 1931, he was a founding member of Abstraction-Création, a group formed to counteract the influence of Andre Breton’s surrealist group.
Kupka had work shown in 1936 at the “Cubism and Abstract Art” exhibition at MOMA in New York City and, in the same year, at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. He regularly exhibited in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris, until his death. 
Having gained general recognition, he had several solo shows in New York and a 1946 retrospective of his work at the Galerie Mánes in Prague. František Kupka died in June of 1957 in Puteaux, France.
František Kupka was drawn to theosophy and Eastern philosophy. He saw deep links between music and visual art and believed fervently in the power of color. To that end, Kupka strove to dissociate color from its usual descriptive role, wanting to let it be expressive in itself, not just on the subject. In his first attempt at this theory, he painted his 1907 “The Yellow Scale”, and produced a very personal painting in a single scale of yellow colors. Although a self-portrait, the subject of the painting was actually the color yellow, contrasted with just a few strokes of green.
Top Insert Image: František Kupka, “Self Portrait”, 1905, Oil on Canvas
Bottom Insert Image: František Kupka, “Meditation”, 1903, Oil on Canvas
Great and concise article. I was the under bidder for the painting when Audrey Beck bought it for the MFAH. Please see my exhibition at the Rollins Museum of Art and the 360 tour to appreciate the 17th century frames.
If you have something on Paul Cadmus, please let me know. He was a friend.