Contacts III

Object NameSculpture

Artist Stanislav Libenský (Czech, 1921-2002)

Artist Jaroslava Brychtová (Czech, 1924-2020)

Made FromNon-lead glass, Steel structure

Date1984-1987

Place MadeCzechoslovakia, Zelezny Brod

TechniqueMold-melted, cut, ground, polished, assembled

Size(a) Sculptural Part H: 121.2 cm, W: 96 cm, D: 26.2 cm; (b) Sculptural Part H: 109 cm

Accession Number88.3.27

Credit LineGift in part of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser

Curatorial Area(s)

Postwar and Contemporary

Exhibitions

Czech Glass Now: Contemporary Sculpture, 1970-2004

Stanislav Libenský, Jaroslava Brychtová: A 34 Year Collaboration with Glass

On ViewBen W. Heineman Sr. Family Gallery of Contemporary Glass.

Interpretive Notes

Web Text

The internationally acclaimed artists Libenský and Brychtová pioneered, explored, developed, and defined glass as a medium for contemporary sculpture. The career in glass of this husband-and-wife team spanned more than 45 years. Their art explores ideas about light, color, space, and transparency. In Contacts, two prisms intersect to form a cube. The combination of two geometric shapes to create a third form is characteristic of Libenský and Brychtová’s work. A much larger version of Contacts was commissioned for a wall in the Narodní metro station in Prague in 1983.

Physical DescriptionTransparent topaz non-lead glass; mold-melted, ground, polished, assembled; steel structure. Solid, narrow, vertical cast sections that are mirror images of each other and stand upright--partly overlapping with approximately 3/8" in between; both irregular shapes consist of a squared, upper, outside corner of uniform thickness the extends downward diagonally then sharply thickens to form a low, wide, diagonal, pyramidal interior edge that tapers in at the base of the section; when pyramidal sections are overlapped the top and sides of the sculpture form two broad, flat corners flanking a central cube that extends downward and visually splits apart leaving a space between the two sections at the base; overall interior veiling and seed bubbles; sections rest on a solid metal rhomboid base; inscribed in block letters near interior base edge of one section: "S. LIBENSKý J. BRYCHTOVÁ 1984-87".
Provenance

Source Daniel Greenberg - 1988-05-16

Source Heller Gallery - 1988-05-16

Source Susan Steinhauser - 1988-05-16