Riko: Seductions of an Artist

Paperback edition. 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. *** READER REVIEWS *** Not only does Dailey bring vividly to life two endlessly fascinating main characters but in addition she brings alive the whole panorama of European history almost from the First World War until a daring visit she herself makes to the Eastern bloc in pursuit of her protagonists early story an adventure that she presents with bone-chilling vividness. Amid so much devastation dislocation and privation there was so much artistic ferment. In these pages which introduce us to a Czech-born painter who should be better known--and would be did he not keep sabotaging himself--are Kafka Kokoschka and Leger miraculously creating their masterworks while the world keeps crumbling around them. The writing is controlled informed and capable of images of hallucinatory intensity. It succeeds in persuading us that Daileys painter friend J E. Milkeska was a painter--as well as a character--to be reckoned with. *** A highly sensitive and insightful book. The character portrayal of both Greta and Riko is right on (I knew them both). The book brings out both their strengths and frustrations. Bravo to an outstanding piece of literature.