Václav Machač - Figurative Glass

(as part of the ‘Alternatives’ series)

12.4.2006 - 4.6.2006

in the Romanesque cellar spaces at 19 – 21 Husova St. Prague 1 – Old Town

Václav Machač (1945), a graduate of the Prague Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (studio of Prof. S. Libenský, 1965-1971), has been a leading representative of Czech and international glass art since the 1970s.

His starting point is in classical sculptural modelling and he uses the technique of glass blown into a mould that is then polychromed. With this approach he achieves outstanding results in an expressive form of realism. His dramatic drawings, both as studies and finished works, are equally outstanding. Machač chooses characteristic themes in which he emphasises his interest in manifesting the strength, resistance and determination of both humans and animals.

These themes are primarily portraits of sportsmen, cyclists and skiers. Here we can find, for example, a portrait sculpture of the Ukrainian boxer Vitaly Klichko. Machač's horse heads and dog portraits are also exceptional. It seems that, through the powerful realism of his modelling, he seeks to confront the mannerist aestheticism of several glass techniques.

A teacher at the secondary glass art school in Nový Bor and a participant in numerous exhibitions of glass art in the Czech Republic and other countries, Václav Machač has brought a characteristic element of life's reality to international sculpture, in the context of which his conception of glass art is highly appreciated.