Art that mesmerizes: Czech and Slovak glass in the Hague

Even though I work predominantly in the medium of painting, it’s not painting that inspires me most. Rather than in two-dimensional visual work, I usually find inspiration in music, film, dance, or sculpture. But even then, it doesn’t happen very often that I come across something that truly captivates me. I enjoy experiencing different forms of art, and I always appreciate the opportunity to be confronted with a different way of looking at the world, but most of the time it’s appreciation rather than fascination. Being struck by a piece of art happens rarely, but when it does, it feels like a new world of possibilities has just opened.

What also happens is that I usually discover that kind of art accidentally. Like it happened a few months ago at the Kunstmuseum in The Hague, where after viewing the Hilma af Klint and Mondrian exhibition, I wandered into the small Czech and Slovak Glass exhibition. Now, the former show had been heavily marketed, whereas the latter didn’t even show on the museum’s homepage. I had not heard or read about it, thus I didn’t know what to expect.

I entered the room and the first thing I saw was a stunning triangular piece in various shades of cool indigo and blue, with varying textures and opacity.

I looked at the information label — no title, just the name of the artist (Stanislav Libenský) and year (1999). Interestingly, when I started my online research, I found out that the piece had actually been made by Stanislav Libenský and his wife Jaroslava Brychtová. The couple met in 1954, married in 1963 and worked together until Libenský’s death, producing many extraordinary pieces. The official title of the blue object at the Kunstmuseum exhibition is, according to Christies and Mutual Art, “Triangle in a triangle”, but it’s also been (mistakenly) referred to as “Space VI, Blue”.

This confusion around the title and authorship only demonstrates how little we know about Stanislav Libenský and the whole Czech and Slovak glass art movement. I went to the Kunstmuseum exhibition twice and spent a good few hours marvelling at the glass pieces, and as soon as I started looking up their authors, I knew I had to write a blog post about it. Not only because their art is truly phenomenal but also because there’s surprisingly little information about it available in English, and one of the goals of my blog is to dig into the arts and discover names we are rarely familiar with.

Art of resistance: Czech and Slovak glass after World War II

The art of glassmaking in Bohemia has a very long tradition. According to Zohra Khan’s article for Stir, it began in the 12th century and has continued to grow ever since, extending its influence over other European countries, such as Germany and Italy which became particularly receptive markets for crafted decorative glass. By 1936, approximately 40% of the world’s glass was made in what was then called Czechoslovakia. And even when Czechoslovakia came under the Communist regime in 1948 and the country got cut off from the rest of Europe for over 40 years, Bohemian artists did not cease to produce work. In fact, some of the best pieces were created at a time marked by the lack of freedom and prosperity. “These artists endured the largest-ever military conflict in Europe, followed by a brief respite of freedom and democracy, only to be plunged into totalitarian domination in 1948, which they could finally shed to return to standards of European democracy after 1989,” stated the curatorial note of the 2023 exhibition at Le Stanze Del Vetro in Venice, which Khan wrote about in her article. “It is remarkable that, despite all the negative effects, they managed to overcome these challenges and grow their art in the broader context of the development of certain artistic disciplines in erstwhile Czechoslovakia.”

I couldn’t help but notice a paralel between the ex-Czechoslovakia and my own country, Poland. In the same way that Czech and Slovak glass artists thrived despite living under the Communist regime in former Czechoslovakia, Polish illustrators and painters resisted the post-war economy bureaucratic censorship and regulation and formed what is referred to as the Polish School of Posters, which had a massive influence on the international development of graphic design in poster art. And it’s not just poster art from that time that impresses us to this day. When in 2017, I went to The Second Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols at Museum of Modern Art, one part of which was a reconstruction of the legendary First Polish Exhibition of Graphic Symbols from 1969, showcasing 335 iconic designs from 1945-1969,  and the other part presented 335 designs created between 2000 and 2015, I was absolutely mesmerized with the level of artistry of the post-war graphic designers. One wonders whether a strange paradox might exist, where having unlimited freedom doesn’t necessarily result in producing ground-breaking art, whereas working under restrictions makes the mind more inventive and sharper — maybe!

The perfect match: Stanislav Libenský & Jaroslava Brychtová

Among the many great Czech and Slovak glass artists, we have a few couples, and of them is Stanislav Libenský (1921-2002) and Jaroslava Brychtová (2024-2020). He trained as a painter and she was a sculptor, and the way they worked together was that Libenský painted and sketched the designs, and Brychtová made clay sculptures from them. From the late 1950s until his death in 2002, they made works which were truly ground-breaking in terms of their technological innovation and scale — some of them weighed 13 tons and measured over 4 metres!

In an interview for My Art Guides, the Venice exhibition curators, Caterina Tognon and Sylva Petrová, described how Libensky and Brychtová pioneered the glass casting technique, which allowed them to make large-scale glass sculptures. It was a technique that was initially developed by Jaroslava Brychtova and her father Jaroslav Brychta who was a sculptor, glassmaker and a founder of a local school in Železný Brod that taught glassmaking techniques (and is still running today). The father was a major influence on Jaroslava’s life: “he sought to develop samples or ideas for the craftsmen there and with his daughter, he began doing little fusions in clay moulds. Brychtova then went on to expand on this technique and met her husband and collaborator Stanislav Libensky, who became the mind behind the projects. Libenský made the paintings and drawings, while Brychtova translated and interpreted his designs, through her refined technique using plaster and creating moulds to perfect the shapes and surfaces.”

They started with small pieces and were gradually expanding their scale, until they started making sculptures which were intended to stand alone without a pedestal, such as the Vestments series made in the late 1990s (one of the pieces from it, Vestment II, is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection in New York). One of the most famous works made by the duo made was the Red Pyramid (1993), which happens to be one of several works in the permanent collection of the Corning Museum of Glass in New York. It is a 1 metre tall pyramidal shape with a dramatic red glow emerging from within. The piece was made using a technique developed by the couple called mould melting, where pieces of glass are placed in moulds and left to slowly melt inside a kiln.

Much of Libenský and Brychtová’s architectural work was done for buildings in the former Czechoslovakia, including two windows created for the St. Wenceslas Chapel in Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral, the façade of the National Theater and a relief inside the Jested Tower. The couple gained recognition at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels and a few years later, they exhibited at World Expos in Montreal in 1967 and Osaka, Japan in 1970.

Libenský and Brychtová became famous not only for their work but also because of their relationship. When they met in 1950s, they had both been married 3 times, and decided to leave their spouses in order to be together, becoming one of those artist couples for whom love and art are inseparable — as inseparable as the couple itself. In The New York Times obituary, I read that while Ms. Brychtova “retained an ‘age-defying curiosity’ about art and culture to the end of her life, she stopped making glass works after her husband’s death. On her 90th birthday she said: ‘It is impossible without Stanislav. I am used to working in a couple. Without him, it just isn’t right.’”

When opposites attract: Zora Palová & Štěpán Pala

Another fascinating couple is Zora Palová (b. 1947 in Bratislava, Slovakia) and Štěpán Pala (b. 1944 in Zlin, Czechia). They met at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava while studying at the department of architectural glass lead by Václav Cigler. They got married in 1971 and have lived, worked, and taught together ever since.

Zora Palová initially studied painting and sculpture, but eventually switched to architecture and glass. On the Corning Museum of Glass website, we can read that “as a student of Henry Moore in London in 1969, she created large-scale sculptures of clay, wood, and plaster that already had the dynamism and emotionalism that distinguish her work. Under Cigler, she learned the discipline of working with glass and she was influenced by his meditative approach to the material.” From 1996 to 2003, she was the head of the glass department at the University of Sunderland in England which turned out to be a transformative moment for her art — it was the North Sea waters that became one of her biggest inspirations. While her art is based on constructivist principles, it is imbued with feelings; her sculptures express natural phenomena and the human body and psyche. In 2009, a year after she had received the Rakow Commission from Corning Museum of Glass, New York, she was invited to give a lecture in which she talked about her creative process which begins with sketching and focuses on transforming the light.

While Zora approaches her art with spontaneity and intuition, and enjoys rough textures and translucent colours, her husband Štěpán Pala plans his sculptures meticulously on paper or as a model. A master of precision and mathematical finesse, he strives for a harmonious balance of geometry and imagination.

Woven with love: Václav Cigler & Eva Brodská

While the relationship and artistic collaboration between both Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová as well as between Zora Palová and Štěpán Pala is well documented, much less is known about the relationship between Václav Cigler and Eva Brodská. In their case, the two artists work in two different fields — while Cigler is one of the biggest names in the world of glass art, Eva Brodská, whose first interest was painting, is a tapestry artist.

Born in 1929 in Vsetin, Czechia, Cigler is best known for his innovations in optical glass-working techniques, which pioneered the Czech and Slovak glass art movement. As the legendary head of the Glass in Architecture studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava from 1965 to 1981, he helped many of his students flourish into renowned artists.

In his own work, Cigler has spent over 50 years working with ground objects made of optical glass, which preserve basic geometric shapes and transform the surrounding reality. He also makes glass jewellery art, in which he applies the same principles as in sculpture work, and focuses on using the optical properties of the material. He considers jewellery to be inseparable from the body itself, and perceives it as a form of a dialogue between the viewer and the environment. According to the artist, what fascinates him most in glass is “the authenticity of the material, the discovery that it has uncommon optical and material properties… Glass by itself is a sufficient source of inspiration”.

Eva Brodská was born in 1937 in Prague, Czechia. She graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design in Prague, where she was taught by Antonín Kybal, the founder of the modern textile art. As a student, she initially regretted not having chosen painting and didn’t find the medium particularly engaging — the only tapestry she made during her studies was a fisherman’s head with a hat. But immediately after graduation, she started weaving at home on a large format warp and her first tapestry was selected for a national show at the Prague Castle Riding Hall.

Brodská is famous for monumental woven images, made with wool or sisal using a traditional tapestry technique. Her favourite format used to be 2 x 3 meters, which she would complete in half a year. Her creative process is a mix of planning and chance (which I can very much relate to!), and she does minimum sketching prior to weaving because she doesn’t want to reweave a pattern — instead, she likes to leave some room for improvisation. Like Zora Pavlová, she is inspired by the sea, which she discovered upon a trip to Brittany in 1990s and has been continuously expressing in her seemingly abstract work.

Other prominent Czech and Slovak glass artists

As mentioned earlier, there are many artists who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava under Václav Ciglar. Miloš Balgavý, Pavol Hlôška, Jan Frydrych, Josef Tomecko and Eva Fišerová are a few names whose works I found incredibly beautiful.

Miloš Balgavý (b. 1955 in Bratislava, Slovakia) grew up in a rural environment with a distinctive craft tradition, which inspired a lifelong passion for nature and high quality craftsmanship. Like Václav Cigler, Balgavý has been working both with large-scale exterior and interior objects and sculptures to smaller utilitarian products, such as jewellery art.

Likewise, Pavol Hlôška (b. 1953 in Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia) has been making glass objects, jewellery, design and architectural works. Using optical ground glass, Hlôška creates objects with an impressive visual-aesthetic tone, where he investigates the space, mirroring and reflection, bringing significance to the craftmanship.

Jan Frydrych (b. 1953 in Šumperk, Czechia) grew up in a small Czech town in Northern Bohemia which is famous for glass-making. He is well-known for his spectacular sculptures made from optical glass which fall into a special art category: high tech art glass. His works are in private collections around the world and in the homes of such prominent people as Elton John or the Clintons. Frydrych is an excellent example of achieving excellence whilst working under severe restrictions. As we can read on his website, due to the fact that he was a lifelong critic of communism, he was placed on the government’s blacklist in the late 1970s. In order to retain his freedom and continue working, he was forced into a deal which prevented him from claiming any credit for his artwork. His ultimate discovery of his medium of choice – optical glass – was actually a result of this pariah status. Forbidden from working with crystal glass, which was regarded as a luxurious material, he had to use industrial-grade optical glass which at the time was very popular in Czech factories producing binoculars and lenses. He therefore managed to turn this discarded and undervalued material into a radical new art form.

One of my favourite pieces at the Kunstmuseum exhibition were made by Eva Fišerová. The artist, who was born in 1947 in Žilina, Slovakia, is apparently one of the most interesting artists on the contemporary Slovak art scene. In an article on the Admagazin website, I read that Eva Fišerová knows everything about glass there is to know, being familiar with both cut and blown transparent material, and all its advantages and physical limitations. She finds it fascinating that a glass work must be created in a single moment and the moment of creation is therefore entirely unique and unrepeatable. Her glass pieces have striking forms and incredible colours; I observed the Boundary piece from all possible angles, and was blown away (pun intended).

Unlike artists mentioned earlier, Lubomir Arzt (1946 Prašice, Slovakia -2015, Senica, Slovakia) did not study at Václav Cigler’s department of Glass in Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. Instead, he graduated from the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Železný Brod which was founded in 1920 by Jaroslava Brychtová’s father. After 1968, when the political conditions in Czechoslovakia deteriorated, together with Miroslav Klinger, the director of the Železnobrod school (1963-1965), Arzt was transferred to the school’s smelter, where, despite the severe conditions and overal oppressive political climate, the two artists managed to push the technological and artistic development of glass forward and gradually shaped the phenomenon of Czech and Slovak glass art.

The lack of experience of studying at an art academy influenced Arzt’s view of his work. He considered himself more of a “passer-by” and instead of pursuing “artistic pretences”, he devoted his life to geometrically understood optical glass. On the Galeria Nová website, we can read that his work is characterized by the purity of expression, which results both from an excellent sense of space and shape, and from the technological brilliance of sanding. In his studio on Chrastová street in Bratislava, he used to mentor younger artists – Juraj Opršal, Pavel Hlôška, Miloš Balgavý, Daniela Tomečková-Marthová etc. and collaborated with Jozef Tomečko.

Another graduate of the Železný Brod glassmaking school was František Vízner (1936 Prague, Czechia – 2011 Brno, Czechia) who also trained at the equally famous glassmaking school in Nový Bor (where Václav Cigler trained before Bratislava) and then went on to study at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague. In the early 60s, he was working in Dubí u Teplic (later Sklo Union) where he created famous works from pressed glass. In 1967, he left for Šrkdlovice, where he devoted himself to blown glass, and later on he turned to cut glass.

Vizner’s most famous form is a bowl with a single, central peak. First made in 1971, this classic had been a life-long preoccupation of the artist. Vizner’s extraordinary objects, with their clean, articulated lines and deep, luminous colours, continue to impress collectors around the world and are represented in the most prominent museum collections: Museum of Applied Art and Craft in Prague, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, The Corning Museum of Glass and many others.

The beauty of reflection

Looking at the objects in the Kunstmuseum, I was reminded of an old film from 1991 called The Object of Beauty by Michael Lindsay-Hogga. The film depicts couple living a luxurious lifestyle which drowns them in debt. In order to fix their financial problems, they plan to pretend that a Henry Moore sculpture they own has been stolen, and to collect insurance on it. However, before they get a chance to put the plan into action, their housekeeper, a young deaf girl, impulsively takes the sculpture home. There is a very moving scene where the girl is being investigated by the police and explains on a piece of paper that the reason she took the sculpture was because… it spoke to her — and that she heard it (the scene can be viewed on Youtube).

Art can indeed speak to us in different ways. It is not frequent that it does so to the point that we can genuinely “hear” it. The Czech and Slovak glass art spoke to me in a way that I hadn’t experienced in a long time and made me reflect on the medium that I knew very little about. And therefore, I’d love to share my discovery so that others can be moved and enchanted as much as I was.