Alois Lecoque (1891-1981) Czechoslovakian, Oil on Board. Street Scene. Signed bottom left. 

Overall: 24 X 28 in. 

Sight: 15 1/2 X 19 1/2 in. 

Depth: 2 in. 

#2736 . 

Alois Lecoque was born in Prague in 1891 as Alois Kahout. After six years of formal study at Prague’s Real Schule, he went to Zagreb to study at the Art Institute under Professor Crncic, graduating with high honors. He then moved to Paris to attend the Academie Julian, studying Impressionism. During this time he took the name Lecoque (the word for “Rooster” in both French and the Czech language). Renoir took him under his wing and helped him to establish his own studio in La Ruche des Artistes in the Vauguirard quarter. In 1913 his works were exhibited at the Anglo German Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. When World War I broke out he fled to Prague on a medical exemption, and endured an unhappy marriage there until 1920 when he spent two years painting in Algiers and other North African locations. Returning to Paris, he concentrated on scenes of the Seine River, the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and bridges. His close friend Emile Bernard invited him to Venice two years later, and he spent many years painting gondolas and canals, before fleeing after becoming involved in a plot to assassinate Benito Mussolini. He settled in Prague for the next 13 years as Europe tore itself apart, remarrying and exhibiting in Ostrava and Bratislava until his outspoken political philosophy led to him being hunted by the Nazis. He escaped through Yugoslavia, sailing down the Dalmatian coast and the Greek islands, before being captured by the Germans and sent to prison in Sarajevo and later Dubrovnik. When the Gestapo came to execute Lecoque and his friend Spitzer the director of the Police, who was an active fan, protected him. Along with the remaining forty three Partisans he organized a breakout and helped to liberate Dubrovnik, eventually joining an American truck convoy that took him to safety in Rome. After World War II Milan, Florence, and Capri became the primary sources of inspiration, and he also became a film actor and a Grand Seigneur, but fascist forces remaining in the government sent him to the Campo de Capua. Unwilling to return to Prague due to Communist rule, and without any property or political control, he endured many heartbreaking and humiliating experiences in Switzerland, Sweden, and France, until he was finally granted permission to enter the United States. With the help of the Czech community in Chicago and especially Roderick A. Gorman, who became his friend and biographer, Lecoque began painting and exhibiting again. He settled in Los Angeles, California, where he maintained an art gallery and frequently sponsored exhibits for other artists striving for recognition. After gaining American citizenship in 1960 he spent the next two decades divided between America and France, passing away in 1981 at his home in California.