Head VI

Artist Stanislav Libenský (Czech, 1921-2002)

Artist Jaroslava Brychtová (Czech, 1924 - 2020)

Date1986

DimensionsH: 21 in. (53.3 cm); W: 12 1/2 in. (31.8 cm); D: 7 1/2 in. (19.1 cm)

MediumMold-melted transparent blue glass; cut and polished.

ClassificationGlass

Credit LinePurchased with funds given by Margy and Scott Trumbull

Object number

2006.53

Not on View

DescriptionTransparent blue-gray glass; chunks of glass melted in a mold, ground, polished. Massive solid cast abstract sculpture with modeled non-polished front side and flat back.

Label TextHusband-and-wife team Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský are renowned, both individually and together, for sculptural glass that has exerted a lasting international influence throughout their long careers. Libenský would create charcoal drawings that Brychtová translated into three-dimensional clay models, which they would then compose in glass. Their tabletop sculptures, including this abstracted head, are characterized by an innovative use of internal space and complex union of color, form, and texture. The couple’s devotion to glass goes beyond the realm of art and enters an almost spiritual dimension. In 1995 they wrote, “Glass allows us to build up a harmony between shapes and penetrating light, and to thus define the essence of light-space and to touch the secret of this space. Nevertheless, although glass is a prime medium for us, the character and the qualities of this material are something more than only a means of artistic expression.”Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Inspired Giving: The Apollo Society 25th Anniversary Exhibition, October 15, 2010-February 13, 2011 (not in catalog).Comparative ReferencesSee also for a green version formerly in the Ben W. Heineman Sr. collection, Chicago, now in the Corning Museum of Glass see "Important new acquisitions at the Corning Museum of Glass," New Glass Review 27, 2006, p. 105.