Since the 1960s the Ohře (Eger) River at Počedělice has been one of the most frequent motifs in Zdeněk Sýkora’s landscapes. He had already discovered this theme in the 50s, when he and his friend Vladimír Mirvald set out by bicycle to paint Louny’s environs. On his canvases he mapped out sites in the narrow valley behind Cítoliby and Brloh, especially focusing on landscape motifs on both banks of the Ohře – from Březno on one side of the river to Pátek on the other. He was captivated by the thick rows of trees reflected in the river and the changing colours of the seasons in Počedělice, as can be seen in the dozens of paintings he created here over the course of thirty years. He often set up his easel in a meadow on the right bank of the Ohře, a site that offered a view across a field in the foreground to the river's edge lined with trees and bushes in every shade of green and a background composed of a strip of woods on the horizon. Housetops also peek through on several paintings. At other times he painted a similar motif from the same site, but looking out against the current. Several paintings capture the changing seasons at another favourite site – an avenue of poplars lining the small road leading to the right of Počedělice bridge against the current. Zdeněk Sýkora often returned to his favourite motif and enjoyed sharing the beauty of the local countryside with his family and friends, often bringing international guests here as well. As a result, Počedělice was well known to poet Emil Juliš, art historians Josef Hlaváček and Jan Sekera, and sculptor Karel Malich; Otakar Slavík also painted here and gallery owner Heinz Teufel liked to recall "the beautiful place by the river”. The importance the site in Sýkora’s painterly development is featured in documentary films, including Svatopluk Vála’s Album (1993) and Jaroslav Brabec’s Krajina (2011). In the 60s and 70s, the group of people who admired Počedělice’s painting motifs expanded to include enthusiasts from a Louny art club led by Zdeněk Sýkoraat the time. Small groups of young art students stood at their easels on the meadow and tried their own hand at depicting the time-tested motif. Their teacher corrected their drafts, but he also painted – even though at his Louny studio he was already creating the abstract Structures and later Lines, which would earn him fame around the world. We often rode our bicycles or drove out to the small clearing by the Ohře together in subsequent decades as well, but rarely painted there. We usually headed out after a hard day at the studio and just sood on the embankment, watching the flowing water, the reflictions and the glistening light on the water’s edge. Zdeněk Sýkora loved the open space, the river, clouds, peace and quiet. And he always found all this in Počedělice…

Lenka Sýkorová, 2013

The Village of Počedělice is seven kilometres eastof Louny, on Route 246 towards Libochovice.