Background
Kalvoda was born in Šlapanice near Brno, the eighth of ten children.
Kalvoda was born in Šlapanice near Brno, the eighth of ten children.
He attended the gymnasium in Brno and then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague for five years, 1892-1897, with Julius Mařák.
In 1900 a scholarship allowed him to study in Paris, from where he moved to Munich in 1901. His time in Munich is credited with broadening his experience of contemporary trends. He first exhibited in Prague in 1901, and in 1902 exhibited at the Mánes Union of Fine Arts.
He opened an art school in Prague in 1900, where his students included Josef Váchal.
He moved this school in 1917 to a castle he had purchased in Běhařov. A memorial to Kalvoda was unveiled in the Šlapanice cemetery in 1998.
In 2005, the Czechoslovakian Republic honored him with a postage stamp showing his "Osiky by Velké Nemcice," one of his earliest paintings, then exhibited at the Moravian Gallery in Brno.
In 1907, he was one of the founding members of the Association of Moravian Artists.
