In the 1934 painting Muž a žena [Man and Woman], two fundamentally different forms "mirror" each other in front of a black background: on the left, an indeterminate red organism with a foot-like protrusion is approaching, and evidently intends to penetrate, a greyish, half-open clam shell on the right. Through this image, Štyrský revisited the subject of eroticism and erotic dreams, which were among the strongest sources of inspiration for the free-thinking
Surrealists.
The painting Man and Woman anticipated the painting Trauma zrození [Trauma of Birth] (1936), in which individual symbols are painted as if on a blackboard, without any apparent connection between them.
SPRING, 1923
GIRL / ABSTRACT COMPOSITION, 1923–1924
AQUARIUM, 1927
PALM FROND, 1931
MAN AND WOMAN, 1934
b. 1899 in Dolní Čermná near Kyšperk, Kingdom of Bohemia
d. 1942 in Prague