Jan Novotný (17 June 1929 – 23 January 2005) was a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...

glass artist Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement. Though usage varies, the term is properly res ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

and

art teacher Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of what ...

Biography

Novotný was born in Pustá Polom,

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

and studied at the secondary glass school in

Kamenický Šenov Kamenický Šenov (german: Steinschönau) is a town in Česká Lípa District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 3,900 inhabitants. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone ...

and from 1952 at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague in the studio of prof. Josef Kaplický. From 1959, he was an art teacher at the Secondary School of Art Glass in

Železný Brod Železný Brod (; german: Eisenbrod) is a town in Jablonec nad Nisou District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 6,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Jizera (river), Jizera River. Administrative parts Villages of Bzí, C ...

. In the late 1950s and during the 1960s, he won several significant awards – Silver Medal at XI.

Triennale The Triennale di Milano is a design and art museum in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arte, which was designed by Giovanni Muzio and built between 1931 and 1933; construction was fina ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, Honorary Prize at

Expo 67 The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

. He participated regularly in exhibitions of Czechoslovak glass all over the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, his work was negatively influenced by the adverse attitude of the governing communist regime to his person. The domain of Jan Novotný is

enamelled glass Enamelled glass or painted glass is glass which has been decorated with vitreous enamel (powdered glass, usually mixed with a binder) and then fired to fuse the glasses. It can produce brilliant and long-lasting colours, and be translucent or o ...

–

vase A vase ( or ) is an open container. It can be made from a number of materials, such as ceramics, glass, non-rusting metals, such as aluminium, brass, bronze, or stainless steel. Even wood has been used to make vases, either by using tree species ...

s, decorative wall plates and

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

windows, but in his work he was using other techniques as well –

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other types ...

drypoint Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio (printmaking), intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate (or "matrix") with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. In principle, the method is practically ident ...

, blowing or

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a Burin (engraving), burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or Glass engraving, glass ...

. His creations include also classic paintings, graphics and drawings. Most of his life he lived and worked in

Malá Skála Malá Skála (german: Kleinskal) is a municipality and village in Jablonec nad Nisou District in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,200 inhabitants. Administrative parts Villages of Bobov, Křížky, Labe, Mukařov, Sněhov, ...

in northeastern

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

References

Literature

External links

Corning Museum of Glass – Jan Novotný

Museum of Glass, Tacoma – Czech Glass, 1945–1980: Design in Age of Adversity
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

) {{DEFAULTSORT:Novotny, Jan 1969 births 2005 deaths Czech educators 20th-century Czech painters Czech male painters People from Opava District 20th-century Czech male artists