Irena Sedlecká is a Czech

Czech people

Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...

 sculptor

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 and Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors

Royal British Society of Sculptors

The Royal British Society of Sculptors is a registered charity whose aims are to promote and support sculpture. It has a worldwide membership....

. After training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

, she was awarded the Lenin Prize

Lenin Prize

The Lenin Prize was one of the most prestigious awards of the USSR, presented to individuals for accomplishments relating to science, literature, arts, architecture, and technology. It was created on June 23, 1925 and was awarded until 1934. During the period from 1935 to 1956, the Lenin Prize was...

 for sculpture before fleeing the communist regime in 1967. She had visited Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 where a sympathetic socialist government led by Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....

 was in power.

She escaped from Prague in 1967 with her doctor husband and her three children. They traveled in an old battered car to Yugoslavia, on the pretence of a camping holiday. They only had passports for themselves; the children were not included on them. Through a fortunate coincidence, an Italian couple, who were traveling alone but had three of their children included on their passports, took pity on the couple's predicament, and offered to follow them through the border to Italy, bringing the three children in as their own.
Reunited with the children, they traveled through Italy and crossed into France. Sedlecká spent months in Paris alone with the children, staying with very generous friends, while her husband journeyed on alone to Britain to attempt to make entry arrangements for them all. They were finally granted the necessary visas to enable them to settle in Britain.

Her first private commission in Britain, in 1975, was from Kathleen Hunt of Walthamstow, for a 70 cm resin statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus (The Madonna

Madonna (art)

Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains...

). She has sculpted many monumental portraits and busts since, including Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...

 of Queen, now in Montreux

Montreux

Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland.It is located on Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps and has a population, , of and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration.- History :...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

; Beau Brummell

Beau Brummell

Beau Brummell, born as George Bryan Brummell , was the arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV...

 in Piccadilly

Piccadilly

Piccadilly is a major street in central London, running from Hyde Park Corner in the west to Piccadilly Circus in the east. It is completely within the city of Westminster. The street is part of the A4 road, London's second most important western artery. St...

, London, and many in private collections. (Her statue of Mercury served as a model for the large illuminated statue that currently dominates the front of the Dominion Theatre

Dominion Theatre

The Dominion Theatre is a West End theatre on Tottenham Court Road close to St Giles Circus and Centre Point Tower, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:...

 in London since the May 2002 premiere of the musical We Will Rock You

We Will Rock You (musical)

We Will Rock You is a jukebox musical, based on the songs of Queen and named after their hit single of the same name. The musical was written by British comedian and author Ben Elton in collaboration with Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor...

.)

Commissioned portrait heads include Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

 (she also modelled the huge head used for his appearance in Dave Clark's

Dave Clark (musician)

David 'Dave' Clark is an English musician, songwriter and record producer. He was the leader and drummer of the 1960s beat group The Dave Clark Five, the first big British Invasion band to follow The Beatles to America in 1964....

 musical Time

Time (musical)

Time is a musical with a book and lyrics by Dave Clark and David Soames, music by Jeff Daniels, and additional songs by David Pomeranz.Derived from the 1970s musical The Time Lord by Soames and Daniels, it focuses on contemporary rock musician Chris Wilder, who has been transported with his backup...

at the Dominion Theatre), Donald Sinden

Donald Sinden

Sir Donald Alfred Sinden CBE is an English actor of theatre, film and television.-Personal life:Sinden was born in Plymouth, Devon, England, on 9 October 1923. The son of Alfred Edward Sinden and his wife Mabel Agnes , he grew up in the Sussex village of Ditchling, where their home doubled as the...

, Paul Eddington

Paul Eddington

Paul Eddington CBE was an English actor best known for his appearances in popular television sitcoms of the 1970s and 80s: The Good Life, Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.-Early life:...

, Richard Briers

Richard Briers

Richard David Briers, CBE is an English actor whose career has encompassed theatre, television, film and radio.He first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines in the 1960s, but it was in the following decade when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life that he became a...

, Jimmy Edwards

Jimmy Edwards

Jimmy Edwards DFC was an English comedic script writer and comedy actor on both radio and television, best known as Pa Glum in Take It From Here and as the headmaster 'Professor' James Edwards in Whack-O!-Biography:...

, Bobby Charlton

Bobby Charlton

Sir Robert "Bobby" Charlton CBE is an English former professional football player, a member of the England team who won the World Cup and Ballon d'Or for European Footballer of the Year in 1966...

, Lord Litchfield and Sir Frank Whittle. In August 1992 her work was shown at the Czech Embassy in London as part of an exhibition devoted to the work of five distinguished Czech émigré sculptors.

She has been married several times, lastly to the sculptor Franta Belsky

Franta Belsky

Franta Belsky was a Czech sculptor.He was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in 1921, the son of the economist Joseph Belsky. With his family, he fled to England after the German invasion, and volunteered for the Czech Exile Army...

, who died in 2000.