Vojtěch Sucharda (6 January 1884, in Nová Paka – 31 October 1968, in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

) was a Czech sculptor, woodcarver and puppeteer.

Life

Sucharda was born into an artistic family as the son of sculptor Antonín Sucharda, Jr. (1843–1911). He was the brother of sculptor Stanislav Sucharda (1866–1916), artist Anna Boudová Suchardová (1870–1940), sculptor and puppeteer Bohuslav Sucharda (1878–1927) and painter Miroslava Suchardová (1889–1965).

Career

In 1913 Sucharda was invited to collaborate on plastics for the Koruna Palace at the

Wenceslas Square Wenceslas Square (Czech language, Czech: , colloquially ''Václavák'' ; German language, German: ''Wenzelsplatz'') is one of the main city squares and the centre of the business and cultural communities in the New Town, Prague, New Town of Pr ...

. He made his possibly most important work, three monumental figures of soldiers, and the ornamental crown on the top. Sucharda was the founder of Prague's ''Říše Loutek'' Theatre ("Puppet Empire") in 1920, where all the Sucharda family had worked for almost forty years. He is known for restoring the wooden figures of the apostles on the Prague Astronomical Clock, which had been heavily damaged by enemy fire in mid-May 1945. Sucharda wrote a letter detailing the difficult conditions in Prague at the time, which he hid in a metal case inside the restored statue of the apostle St. Thomas. His hidden message was discovered 70 years later in 2018, when restorers noticed that one of the statues was heavier than the rest and an x-ray revealed the hidden message.

Work

As an architectural sculptor, Sucharda's work includes: * the two seated figures flanking the entrance to the Museum of Eastern Bohemia in

Hradec Králové Hradec Králové (; ) is a city of the Czech Republic. It has about 94,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Hradec Králové Region. The historic centre of Hradec Králové is well preserved and is protected as an Cultural monument (Czech R ...

, for architect

Jan Kotěra Jan Kotěra (18 December 1871 – 17 April 1923) was a Czech architect, artist and interior designer, and one of the key figures of modern architecture in Bohemia. Biography Kotěra was born in Brno, the largest city in Moravia, to a Czech fath ...

, 1908–1912 * the three figures at the crown of the Koruna Palace at the

in Prague, 1912–1914 * work at the St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sucharda, Vojtech 1884 births 1968 deaths Czech sculptors Czech male sculptors Czech architectural sculptors Czech puppeteers 20th-century Czech sculptors People from Nová Paka Czechoslovak sculptors Sculptors from Austria-Hungary