Autoři sochy/Authors of Sculptures
“Beauty is a symbol of truth. He who does not search for truth and pursues lesser things will not create art.” Andrei TarkovskyI kept this criterion in mind, which is so old that even Plato considered it ancient, during the selection of the works for display. Two things were important here:
1. the displayed object must contain a substantive message for the viewer, and 2. in its form it is, in the original sense, a thing created out of solid matter by an intelligent mind and a skillful artist.
What is titillating about a sculpture?
In the middle of Plato’s dialogue on the soul and beauty, Phaedrus writes:
Every soul fell to the earth, whence they will never take off except upon wings that can grow only with the power of Érōs.
Only through the senses can one experience beauty. Only Erós – love for a beautiful face, image or sculpture awakens a certain tickling and irritation in a person’s soul.
As if it had sprouted wings.
The soul that does not grow wings while alive will never take off after death.
Our life has no real meaning other than cultivating the wings of the soul by lying with the beauty that is present in everything.
A paraphrase (D.B.) of part of Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus, on the soul and beauty (246a–252c).
In other words, titillation is supposed to connect the beauty in the portrait with the beauty in the soul of the viewer. The divine soul resembles the human soul, and Erós mediates between the two. The poet Vladimír Holan speaks of Erós as the heavenly vault. Erós is the might of growing wings. It is in the work when someone who recalls beauty glimpses this beauty on a beautiful face or thing – a sculpture, a picture. At the instant when buds burgeon on his soul and from the buds begin to emerge wings, the viewer senses a certain itching, titillation and pain all at the same time. The sculpture is titillating because it causes this titillation. It causes the most important thing that can take place in the fate of a soul because either the soul dies in the body as in a mussel or it grows wings and prepares to take off. This life has no other purpose than the care of the soul, and beauty is the only thing visibly to the senses (wisdom or the good, for example, cannot be seen). Only beauty via the senses can cause the soul to grow. This exhibition is supposed to be full of titillation, which causes this transformation to take place in the viewer.
Selection Criteria
Over the course of two months I selected the work of 30 artists created between the years 1943 and 2019. Half of the artists are from the Association of Sculptors of the Czech Republic, a quarter of them are women, and one fifth of them are the works of deceased artists. Below you will find a list of exhibitors arranged by year of birth. I have added the place of birth and training, including the names of the heads of the respective ateliers. Ideally the student learns the fundamentals from his teacher and then adds something uniquely his own. Several artists (primarily those who studied during the period of Normalization) rarely acknowledge their professors at the Academy (Petr Císařovský and Tomáš Smetana), or they cannot acknowledge them because they saw them only a few times during their studies (Michal Blažek). The comrades did now allow Věra Nováková to finish her studies, not for reasons of a lack of talent. In this exhibition I wanted to provide evidence for the thesis that in art consumer biases concerning freshness, the development from worse to better, more modern and current do not apply. I did not follow a developmental line in (Czech) sculpture — isms did not interest me. As far as I was able, I based my selections on quality and beauty.
Pavlína Bartoňová
Karla Vobišová-Žáková
★1887 Kunžak ✚1961 Prague
1913–1921 School of Applied Arts in Prague with Stanislav Sucharda, Štěpán Zálešák, Josef Drahoňovský and Bohumil Kafka, 1921–1924 in Paris with Emil Antoin Bourdell
Hana Wichterlová
★1903 Prostějov ✚1990 Prague
1903–1990 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Šturs
Stanislav Kolíbal
★ 1925 Orlová
1945–1950 Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague with Antonín Strnadel
1951–1954 Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with František Tröster
Zdeněk Palcr
★1927 Svitávka u Brna ✚1996 Prague
1945–1950 Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague with Josef Wagner
Josef Klimeš
★ 1928 Měřín in Moravia ✚2018 in Prague
1949–1954 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Lauda
Věra Nováková
★ 1928 in Prague
1947 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, after the putsch in 1949 at the beginning of the fourth semester she was expelled during the political screenings
Vlasta Prachatická
★1929 Staré Smrkovice
1946–1951 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Otakar Španiel
Václav Frydecký
★ 1931 Olomouc + 2011 Prague
1950–1955 Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague with Bedřich Stefan and Jan Lauda. Assistant to Jan Lauda, Vincenc Makovský, Karel Hladík and Václav Bradáč.
Stanislav Hanzík
★ 1931 Most
1951–1956 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Lauda
Assistant to Vincenc Makovský and Karel Lidický
Čestmír Mudruňka
★ 1935 Uhersko
1958–1964 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Lauda, Karel Pokorný and Karel Hladík
Jan Hendrych
★ 1936 Prague
1955–1961 Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague with Josef Wagner and Jan Kavan
Jiří Sopko
★1942 Dubové na Podkarpatské Rusi
1960–1966 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Antonín Pelc
Jindřich Zeithamml
★1949 Teplice
1976–1982 Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf with Norbert Kricke
Petr Císařovský
★1950 Prague
1969–1975 Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague with Jan Nušl, Josef Malejovský, Jiří Soukup and Bedřich Hanák
Pavel Míka
★ 1952 Prague
1977–1983 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jiří Bradáček
Jan Turský
★1955 Prague
1974–1980 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jiří Bradáček
Michal Blažek
★1955 Prague
1977–1983 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jiří Bradáček. Professionally assisted Jan Hendrych. Based on the wishes and testimony of Mr. Blažek I will add that he was thrown out of the Academy of Fine Arts after two years (1995) after he signed a petition protesting the fact that Knížák finished his studies in two months and received his diploma from his subordinate Aleš Veselý.
Jiří Plieštik
★1956 Nové Město in Moravia
1981–1987 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Miloš Axman and Stanislava Hanzíka. Assistant to Hana Wichterlová and Karel Nepraš
Jiří Středa
★1956 Náchod
1976–1982 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Karl Kolumk and Jiří Bradáček
Marius Kotrba
★ 1959 Čeladná ✚ 2011 Rožnov pod Radhoštěm
1981–1987 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Stanislav Hanzík and Miloš Axman
Tomáš Smetana
★1960 Praha
1980–1985 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Arnošt Padrlík
Libor Pisklák
★1962 Kladno
1985–1991 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Hendrych. Assistant to Jan Hendrych
Šeborová Marie
★1966 Prague
1990–1993 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jitka Svobodová
1993–1996 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Hendrych
DenisAnfilov
★ 1967 Prague
1983–1987 the Václav Hollar Art Academy in Prague
David Janouch
★ 1967 Prague
1986–1992 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Hendrych, 2014 – 2016 with Petr Siegl
Jaromír Švaříček-RASVA
★1967 Třebíč
1990–1996 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Hendrych
Daniel Talavera
★1969 Městec Králové
Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Petr Siegl
Jiří Kobr
★ 1974 Dvůr Králové nad Labem
1997–2003 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Petr Siegl and Jindřich Zeithamml
Chládková Barbora
★ 1979
2001–2007 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Jan Hendrych
Kateřina Strach Tichá
★1987 Čáslav
2007–2013 Academy of Fine Arts in Prague with Milan Knížák, stáž u Jana Hendrycha
2011–2012 Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague with Eva Eisler
