Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová
Encyclopedia
Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová are contemporary artists. Their works are included in many major modern art collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art
and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Jaroslava Brychtová, a sculptor, and Stanislav Libenský, originally a painter and later a glass artist, met in 1954. They married in 1963 and worked together until Libenský's death on February 24, 2002. Libenský painted and sketched the designs, and Brychtová made clay sculptures from his designs. Since Libenský's death, Brychtová has continued to produce castings. Their work is characterised by simple block shapes infused with subtle colours and nuances.
, a region encompassing the Czech-German border called the Sudetenland
. When the German army occupied the Sudetenland in 1938, Libenský moved first to the school at Železný Brod, and later to Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, known as VŠUP (an abbreviation of Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová v Praze) from which he graduated in 1944. His first notable series in glass, created in Nový Bor between 1945 and 1948, were thin crystal vessels, delicately etched and enameled with themes from the Bible and Renaissance art.
In 1948 Libenský returned to VŠUP, where he studied under Josef Kaplický, a painter, sculptor and architect who headed the school of painting on glass. Through his dynamic teaching style and modernist ideas, Kaplický had a tremendous influence on his students and thus on the independence of glass as an art form in Czechoslovakia. In 1953 Libenský returned to Železný Brod to become the director of the Specialized School of Glassmaking. It was during that time that he met Jaroslava Brychtová, the daughter of the school's co-founder, Jaroslav Brychta.
Jaroslava Brychtová began to experiment with casting and carving glass in the late 1940s. She founded the Center for Architectural Glass at the Specialized School of Glassmaking in 1950. Like Libenský, Brychtová studied at VŠUP. The war interrupted her education, but she later finished her studies with a concentration in sculpture. Her teachers were Karel Štipl (from 1945 to 1951) and Jan Lauda (from 1947 to 1950). Jaroslava Brychtová's career at the Specialized School of Glassmaking in Železný Brod spanned 1950 to 1984. The couple began their long collaboration in 1954. when Brychtová created a sculptural glass bowl modeled after a sketch of a bowl-shaped head that Libenský had made. According to Libenský, the two worked well together because he was trained as a painter, and she as a sculptor.
Libenský and Brychtová married in 1963.
were cast in negative low relief. The effect presented by this, when viewed through the smooth surface of the glass, is of a three-dimensional form captured within its depths. Incorporated into a concrete wall in the pavilion's "Glass" gallery, "Animal Reliefs" was awarded a Grand Prix. While the original work did not survive, a recreation of it was installed in the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. In developing the negative modeling technique employed in "Animal Reliefs", Brychtová and Libenský created the foundation on which the majority of their later sculptural work was based.
, Marian Karel, and Yan Zoritchak (Ján Zoričák).
. Built in the fourteenth century, the historic chapel was reconstructed by the Czech government between 1961 and 1964. Libenský and Brychtová were selected by competition to replace the chapel's original stained glass windows, which dated from 1912-13. The artists created an abstract design for the windows that, in its modern simplicity, departed from the ornate, early sixteenth-century decoration of the chapel. To relate the new to the old, Libenský and Brychtová used the muted grey-brown, grey-green and pink hues in the chapel's frescoes as the predominate colors in their windows.
Outside of Czechoslovakia their architectural glass work was seen in World's Fair exhibitions and Czech Embassies. At Expo '67
in Montreal they created three large sculptures for the Czechoslovakian Pavilion's "Hall of Century and Traditions". These were "Blue Concretion," "Sun of the Century" and "Large Conus". According to Corning Museum of Art curator Tina Oldknow, these large-scale sculptures in glass were "a revelation" to the American Studio Glass artists who saw them, including Harvey Littleton
, Dale Chihuly
and Marvin Lipofsky
.
in London in 1994. In 1985 he was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the Ministry of Culture and Communication in Paris, France. He won the Herder Prize from the University of Vienna
, Austria in 1975. With his wife and collaborative partner, Jaroslava Brychtová, Libenský was accorded a number of honors. the pair were presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from Urbanglass in Brooklyn, New York and the Glass Art Society in 1997 and 1996, respectively. They won the Bavarian State Prize and Gold Medal at the Internationale Handwerksmesse in Munich, Germany in 1995 and 1967, and received Gold Medal awards from Internationales Kunsthandwerk in Stuttgart, Germany in 1969 and at the VIII Bienal de São Paulo in 1965. Libenský and Brychtová were presented with the Rakow Award for Excellence in Glass from the Corning Museum of Glass
in 1984.
The work of Libenský and Brychtová has been collected by public institutions world-wide, including the Art Gallery of Western Australia
in Perth; Prague National Museum, Prague, Czecholslovakia; Museum Bellrive
, Zurich, Switzerland; Finnish Glass Museum, Riihimäki
; Victoria and Albert Museum
, London; Hokkaidō Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
, Japan; Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; Corning Museum of Glass
, Corning, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
, Los Angeles, California; and Toledo Museum of Art
, Toledo, Ohio.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Jaroslava Brychtová, a sculptor, and Stanislav Libenský, originally a painter and later a glass artist, met in 1954. They married in 1963 and worked together until Libenský's death on February 24, 2002. Libenský painted and sketched the designs, and Brychtová made clay sculptures from his designs. Since Libenský's death, Brychtová has continued to produce castings. Their work is characterised by simple block shapes infused with subtle colours and nuances.
Education and artistic partnership
Stanislav Libenský began his study of glass in 1937 at the Specialized School of Glassmaking in Nový Bor, CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, a region encompassing the Czech-German border called the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
. When the German army occupied the Sudetenland in 1938, Libenský moved first to the school at Železný Brod, and later to Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, known as VŠUP (an abbreviation of Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová v Praze) from which he graduated in 1944. His first notable series in glass, created in Nový Bor between 1945 and 1948, were thin crystal vessels, delicately etched and enameled with themes from the Bible and Renaissance art.
In 1948 Libenský returned to VŠUP, where he studied under Josef Kaplický, a painter, sculptor and architect who headed the school of painting on glass. Through his dynamic teaching style and modernist ideas, Kaplický had a tremendous influence on his students and thus on the independence of glass as an art form in Czechoslovakia. In 1953 Libenský returned to Železný Brod to become the director of the Specialized School of Glassmaking. It was during that time that he met Jaroslava Brychtová, the daughter of the school's co-founder, Jaroslav Brychta.
Jaroslava Brychtová began to experiment with casting and carving glass in the late 1940s. She founded the Center for Architectural Glass at the Specialized School of Glassmaking in 1950. Like Libenský, Brychtová studied at VŠUP. The war interrupted her education, but she later finished her studies with a concentration in sculpture. Her teachers were Karel Štipl (from 1945 to 1951) and Jan Lauda (from 1947 to 1950). Jaroslava Brychtová's career at the Specialized School of Glassmaking in Železný Brod spanned 1950 to 1984. The couple began their long collaboration in 1954. when Brychtová created a sculptural glass bowl modeled after a sketch of a bowl-shaped head that Libenský had made. According to Libenský, the two worked well together because he was trained as a painter, and she as a sculptor.
Libenský and Brychtová married in 1963.
1958 Brussels Expo
The Czechoslovakian pavilian at the EXPO '58 in Brussels garnered attention for its modern architectural design, its film, acting and ballet presentations, it was Czech glass that attracted the attention of the judges. The entry designed by Libenský and Brychtová, "Animal Reliefs," (later known as "Zoomorphic Stones") were cast glass "stones." These were smooth on the obverse; on the reverse, animals inspired by the cave paintings of Altamira and LascauxLascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
were cast in negative low relief. The effect presented by this, when viewed through the smooth surface of the glass, is of a three-dimensional form captured within its depths. Incorporated into a concrete wall in the pavilion's "Glass" gallery, "Animal Reliefs" was awarded a Grand Prix. While the original work did not survive, a recreation of it was installed in the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. In developing the negative modeling technique employed in "Animal Reliefs", Brychtová and Libenský created the foundation on which the majority of their later sculptural work was based.
Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (VŠUP)
Josef Kaplický’s death in 1962 left a void at VŠUP that was filled by Libenský, who was appointed a professor in the glass department in 1963. Libenský was an excellent teacher who respected the tradition of glass in Czechoslovakia while furthering his own ideas about the modern direction of glass art. His career at the academy lasted nearly one-quarter of a century. During that time, despite the opposition of the Communist government that had taken hold of the country in the late 1940s, Libenský was able not only to influence two generations of glass artists through his teaching but also, through international lecturing and exhibition of his and Jaroslava Brychtová’s works, build international interest in modern Czech glass art. Notable students of Professor Libenský include Jiří Harcuba, František JanákFrantišek Janák
František Janák is a Czech glass artist. He creates glass sculptures and commission works, and also does series production design for different Czech glassworks....
, Marian Karel, and Yan Zoritchak (Ján Zoričák).
Architectural Commissions
Much of Libenský and Brychtová's architectural work was done for buildings in Czechoslovakia, including two windows, created for the St. Wenceslas Chapel in Prague's St. Vitus CathedralSt. Vitus Cathedral
Saint Vitus' Cathedral is as a Roman Catholic cathedral in Prague, and the seat of the Archbishop of Prague. The full name of the cathedral is St. Vitus, St. Wenceslas and St. Adalbert Cathedral...
. Built in the fourteenth century, the historic chapel was reconstructed by the Czech government between 1961 and 1964. Libenský and Brychtová were selected by competition to replace the chapel's original stained glass windows, which dated from 1912-13. The artists created an abstract design for the windows that, in its modern simplicity, departed from the ornate, early sixteenth-century decoration of the chapel. To relate the new to the old, Libenský and Brychtová used the muted grey-brown, grey-green and pink hues in the chapel's frescoes as the predominate colors in their windows.
Outside of Czechoslovakia their architectural glass work was seen in World's Fair exhibitions and Czech Embassies. At Expo '67
Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition or Expo 67, as it was commonly known, was the general exhibition, Category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century, with the...
in Montreal they created three large sculptures for the Czechoslovakian Pavilion's "Hall of Century and Traditions". These were "Blue Concretion," "Sun of the Century" and "Large Conus". According to Corning Museum of Art curator Tina Oldknow, these large-scale sculptures in glass were "a revelation" to the American Studio Glass artists who saw them, including Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton
Harvey Littleton is an American educator and glass artist. Born in Corning, New York, he grew up in the shadow of Corning Glassworks, where his father headed Research and Development during the 1930s...
, Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly
Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur.-Biography:Chihuly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington. He enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound in 1959...
and Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky
Marvin Lipofsky is an American glass artist. He was one of the six students that Studio Glass founder Harvey Littleton instructed under an independent study program for the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall 1962 and spring 1963...
.
Honors and awards
Libenský was awarded an honorary doctorates in Great Britain by the University of Sunderland in 1999 and by the Royal College of ArtRoyal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
in London in 1994. In 1985 he was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the Ministry of Culture and Communication in Paris, France. He won the Herder Prize from the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
, Austria in 1975. With his wife and collaborative partner, Jaroslava Brychtová, Libenský was accorded a number of honors. the pair were presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from Urbanglass in Brooklyn, New York and the Glass Art Society in 1997 and 1996, respectively. They won the Bavarian State Prize and Gold Medal at the Internationale Handwerksmesse in Munich, Germany in 1995 and 1967, and received Gold Medal awards from Internationales Kunsthandwerk in Stuttgart, Germany in 1969 and at the VIII Bienal de São Paulo in 1965. Libenský and Brychtová were presented with the Rakow Award for Excellence in Glass from the Corning Museum of Glass
Corning Museum of Glass
The Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, explores every facet of glass, including art, history, culture, science and technology, craft, and design....
in 1984.
Collections
Art Gallery of Western Australia
The Art Gallery of Western Australia is a public gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth, Western Australia. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia...
in Perth; Prague National Museum, Prague, Czecholslovakia; Museum Bellrive
Museum of Design Zürich
The Museum of Design, Zurich is a museum for industrial design, visual communication, architecture, and craft in Zurich, Switzerland.- Overview :...
, Zurich, Switzerland; Finnish Glass Museum, Riihimäki
Riihimäki
Riihimäki is a town and municipality in the south of Finland, about north of Helsinki and southeast of Tampere. It is somewhat of a railway junction, since the railway tracks going from different parts of the nation to Helsinki merge there. Sako, Ltd...
; Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, London; Hokkaidō Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
The in Tokyo, Japan, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting contemporary Japanese art.This Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym MOMAT...
, Japan; Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; Corning Museum of Glass
Corning Museum of Glass
The Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning, New York, explores every facet of glass, including art, history, culture, science and technology, craft, and design....
, Corning, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
, Los Angeles, California; and Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo Museum of Art
The Toledo Museum of Art is an internationally known art museum located in the Old West End neighborhood of Toledo, Ohio, United States. The museum was founded by Toledo glassmaker Edward Drummond Libbey in 1901, and moved to its present location, a Greek revival building designed by Edward B....
, Toledo, Ohio.
External links
Further reading
- Thomas S. BuechnerThomas S. BuechnerThomas Scharman Buechner was an aspiring artist who turned to working at museums, who became the founding director of the Corning Museum of Glass and director of the Brooklyn Museum, where he oversaw a major transformation in its operation and displays....
and William Warmus, "Czechoslovakian Diary: 1980." Corning: The Corning Museum of Glass, 1981. Chronicles the authors' visit to the Libenský-Brychtová studio in July, 1980. - William Warmus, "The Art of Libensky and Brychtova." The first Rakow Award lecture for Excellence in the Art of Glass, October 1984, at The Corning Museum of Glass. Published in Neues Glas magazine in 1985 and the Corning Museum of Glass New Glass Review in 1985.