The Gray Table

Artist Stanislav Libenský Czech, 1921-2002

Artist Jaroslava Brychtová Czech, 1924 - 2020

Date1987 (cast 1988)

DimensionsH: 15 5/8 in.; W: 30 1/4 in.; D: 10 1/4 in.

MediumCast glass

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Dorothy and George Saxe

Object number

1991.98

Not on View

Collections

Glass

Published ReferencesParis, Clara Scremini Gallery, S. Libensky, J. Brychtova, text by Sylva Petrová (Paris, 1988), no. 12 (ill.).

Vallongo, Sally, "Gifts of Glass: Couple's Collection Helps Art Museum to Rebuild," The Blade (Toledo), June 14, 1992, p. 2.

Exhibition HistoryNew York, Heller Gallery, Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová: A 34 Year Collaboration with Glass, 1988.

Toledo Museum of Art; The Saint Louis Art Museum; Newport Beach, California, Newport Harbor Art Museum; Washington, D.C., Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art Smithsonian Institution, Contemporary Crafts and the Saxe Collection, 1993-1995, pl. 26, p. 54, cat. no. 47, p. 198.

Label TextThe artistic collaboration between the husband-and-wife team of Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová has significantly shaped the landscape of contemporary glass art, redefining glass’s use as a sculptural medium through their investigation of light, color, and, form. Their accomplishments are especially remarkable given the oppressive political conditions of the Communist government of what was then Czechoslovakia, where they spent much of their career. Libenský and Brychtová were among the artists who supported a rebirth of Czech art as a form of political protest. Their volumetric, light-filled works, which stretch the physical limits of the material to achieve mass and scale, are both impressive and technically difficult. Gray Table belongs to a body of work from the 1980s that took the form of tables and thrones. While much of the couple’s work is geometric and abstract, this more representational expression is perhaps a quietly subversive symbol of the power and control exerted by the government over their personal and artistic lives until the 1990s.