Lot 188

Jiří Beránek (1945 - 2021) UNTITLED

From the mid-1970s until 1983, Jiří Beránek worked together with the Koval family in a cottage in Sobotín. Beránek's works from this period, such as Pluh (1978), Skalní město (1979) or Prameny (1981), are characterized by a sort of rusticity. They refer to the folk roots of society and art, to natural materials and the rural tradition of processing them, that is, to a kind of prehistory that seems freer, gentler and more humane than our current environment. Beránek himself aptly captured the essence of his works with the words: "There are moments when it is worth going back for something that we are essentially missing". With such "return to the roots", Beránek offers an alternative form of life, born from the womb of nature. The motif of birth is evident in the presented wooden piece from 1981, as is in other important works of Beránek from the 1980s.