Lot 110

Josef Kaplický (1899 - 1962) DOUBLEPORTRAIT

Josef Kaplický became renowned as a versatile talent in the fields of graphic design, glass, sculpture, and mosaics. The 1930s were a period of sculpture for him, and a certain density and structural quality can be observed in this composition as well. Kaplický made a name for himself as a glass artist and educator at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, but also as an outstanding theorist who sought harmony and order in form and presented applied art as equal to fine art. The representativeness of applied art, which was exported beyond the borders of the socialist state, had to meet expectations outside the socialist state, and thus, unlike students at the Academy, glass artists could depart from Socialist Realism and adhere to “worthless” abstraction and modernism, which applied art masked as ornamental elements.