He was born on May 15, 1875 in Šlapanice near Brno and died on June 25, 1934 in Běhařov near Klatovy. In the years 1892–1897, he studied at the landscape school of professor Julius Mařák at the Prague Academy. In 1900, he received the Hlávka scholarship, which enabled him to study trips to Paris and Marne, and in 1901 to Munich. He ran a private painting school first in Prague, later in a baroque chateau in Běhařov in Šumava, which he bought and renovated in 1917. In the years 1899–1907, he was a member of SVU Mánes, then a founding member of the Association of Moravian Artists (SVUM) and then a member of the Prague Union of Artists (JUV). He published the book Artists Friends (1929) and Memories (1932), in which, among other things, he described his school years spent with Julius Mařák.
Alois Kalvoda focused his work primarily on capturing the atmospheric changes of a given moment and capturing the mood in the landscape. He depicted the simple motifs of the Czech region with dynamic painting, a broad brush, elements of art nouveau decorative stylization and, above all, the brilliant clarity of colors.
The creation of the painting Summer Landscape from the property of the Vysočina Regional Gallery in Jihlava probably dates back to 1905–1917, when his work is characterized by a shift away from symbolism to the illusive views of the landscape marked by light contrasts between the dark foreground and the bright second plan. The painting is an example of Kalvoda's typical landscape scenery executed in airy, sunlit tones, where the author also uses the complementary relationship of a rich range of green tones with the distinct red of flowers in the foreground to achieve a very impressive effect.
Jana Bojanovská