Vincenc Makovský

One of the most significant representatives of the Czech Interwar Avant-garde, the sculptor Vincenc Makovský graduated from high school in 1918 in his home town. Yearning to be a painter, in 1919 he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. At first, he attended painting studios. However, a transfer to the sculpture studio of Jan Štursa had a decisive effect on his later career and, after Štursa’s death he finished his studies in 1926 under the guidance of Professor Bohumil Kafka.

Alongside his own work, his professional life also included teaching activities and he participated in setting up the School of Art in Zlín. In 1945, he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He was a member of a number of art associations, e.g. Group of Surrealists of Czechoslovakia. He received many honours for his work and, in 1958, received the National Artist of Merit award.

His graduation work earned him a scholarship from the French government. In Paris, where he worked from 1926 to 1930 in the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle’s studio, he encountered modern French sculpture work, receding Cubism, and Civilianism of the period. He acquired expressive skills which lay on the borderline between Abstract and Figurative, e.g. Hlava-Vejce (Head-Egg) and Hlava-přilba (Head-Helmet) from 1926 to 1927, both featuring Brutalist tendencies which he developed further. He created relief work from cardboard, and utilised anti-sculptural materials, creating sculptures from bent wire or sheet metal.

In the early 1930s, immediately after his return to Brno, he reacts in his work to the latest incentives from European sculpture. His Surreal artwork Dívčí sen (Girl’s Dream, 1932-1934) and Žena s vázou (Woman with Vase, 1934) are rightly regarded as being some of his best work. From the mid-1930s, after his study trips to Paris, Moscow, Leningrad and London, his work is influenced by Realist and Neo-classicist tendencies, causing his artwork to stagnate somewhat.

The period of the Second World War is associated with his work at the School of Art in Zlín. Here, he created Constructivist sculptures of machines, thus basically, becoming the first Czechoslovak industrial designer. His rich portrait work is also from this period, above all those depicting figures from Czech history - Karel Havlíček Borovský (1938) or Božena Němcová (1939).

During the post-war years, he dedicated himself mostly to monumental memorial artwork which, despite certain ideological links to the ruling regime, respected Makovský’s attempts to unite architecture and public spaces with work of artistic value. One such example of this is his memorial to Alois Jirásek in Litomyšl, whose first concept he created in 1940, the actual construction of the memorial was, however, delayed by wartime events and finished in 1959.

1937
Memorial to T. G. Masaryk
Tyršovo Square, Humpolec

1940
Design for memorial to Alois Jirásek
Town Gallery in Litomyšl

1955
Memorial to Victory of Soviet Army over Fascism
Moravské Square, Brno

1956–1957
New Age
Before the entrance to the Trade Fair Centre, Brno

1957
Memorial to Jan Amos Komenský
Naarden, Kingdom of Netherlands

1964–1966
Heraldic figure of lion
Before the north entry to Prague Castle