Karel Lissa was a 20th century spiritualist and mediumistic artist from Tejnka, Prague. It was reported in a magazine article of 1909 that he was a policeman who was inspired to draw as he sat quietly with his wife during an evening’s twilight whilst in a light trance. Little else is known about this enigmatic artist. He was included in several exhibitions arranged by Stanislav Belohradsky, the early champion of this type of spiritual phenomena. Lissa began to draw mediumistically around 1903 and he is often referred to as the first drawing medium in Bohemia. When exhibiting in 1913 it was said that there were around 300 works by him. Today only a few records survive of his work.
More information on Karel Lissa can be found at czechmediumisticart.com which is a website devoted to the mediumistic artists from Silesia. It is run by Eva Zdražilová and Jan Oravec who formed the Part One of our Discovering Collections Series which can be seen here: The Collection of Eva Zdražilová and Jan Oravec – Mediumistic Art from the Czech Republic
Check out our artists page for more exponents of Czech mediumistic art such as Frantisek Jaroslav Pecka and Anna Hackel (Haskel).