Jaroslava Brychtová works in her studio on glass sculptures and fused reliefs, 1957, photo: ČTK/Jan Tachezy
Jaroslava Brychtová, born in July 1924, was immersed in the art world from an early age. Her parents were heavily involved in the Prague art scene. Her mother ran a workshop for hand-woven textiles and her father was a sculptor who ran a glassworks school at Železný Brod in Northern Bohemia, where she was born. Inspired by her father, Brychtová became a sculptor and decided to pick glass as her medium. She began working at the glass school as the head of the Architectural Glass Department where she met her husband, Stanislav Libenský, in 1954. At the time, he was teaching students how to design glass and he later became the director of the school at Železný Brod.
Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský, photo: Archive of Jaroslav Zahranidnik
Although Brychtová and Libensky were both married to other people at their introduction, they divorced their previous partners to be with each other and created a bit of a scandal. Their partnership of almost 50 years birthed some of the defining sculptural and architectural installations of the 20th century. They were first noticed at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, where they showed colorful glass blocks with animal reliefs. The couple began exploring the optical and physical aspects of glass to create pieces that played with form, light, and color. Together they developed a mold-melting technique that allowed them to translate abstract concepts into glass, such as the idea of the “fourth dimension” that was created with the use of light. Their approach is heavily influenced by early 20th-century Czech Cubism and metaphysical philosophy.
Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, Gray Table. Cast Glass, 1987; cast 1988 | toledomuseum.org
During the Communist rule of Czechoslovakia, artists who would normally be censored found that they could hide in the art of glassmaking by using ideas like abstraction. Brychtová and Libensky’s accomplishments are impressive given the oppressive conditions of the Czech Republic under the Communist government. They were among the Czech artists who would use their art as a form of political protest. The sculpture Gray Table is part of a series from the 1980s where they use forms of tables and thrones to symbolically express the power and control that the government had over their personal and artistic lives until the 1990s. Their work was initially underwritten by the state and the couple was expelled from the party and forbidden to travel. Eventually, the couple would create public works in the Czech Republic, such as the façade for the National Theatre, stained glass windows at the St. Vitus Cathedral, and reliefs inside the Jested Tower.
The couple worked together until Libenský’s death in 2002. After the loss of her husband, Brychtová stopped working in glass, sharing that “It is impossible without Stanislav. I am used to working in a couple. Without him, it just isn’t right.” Although she ended her glass career, her reputation inspired new generations of female glass artists and throughout old age, her curiosity for art and culture stayed with her. On April 8, 2020, Brychtová passed away from heart failure in Jablonec nad Nisou, Czechoslovakia. She was 95 years old.
Written by: Savannah Rodriguez
Sources:
Hollister, Paul. Glass. Summer 1994 ed., vol. 56, 1994.
“Libenský / Brychtová.” HELLER GALLERY, https://www.hellergallery.com/libensky-brychtova.
“Jaroslava Brychtova Stanislav Libensky.” Habatat Detroit Fine Art, https://www.habatat.com/artist/70-jaroslava-brychtova-stanislav-libensky/.