STANISLAV LIBENSKÝ & JAROSLAVA BRYCHTOVÁ | INNER LIGHT

Heller Gallery presents Stanislav Libenský & Jaroslava Brychtová: Inner Light. The first major US exhibition of the legendary Czech artists’ work since Jaroslava Brychtová passed away in 2020.  

Defying the aesthetic dictates of socialist realism, Libenský & Brychtová found a way to use the production facilities of the Communist glass industry.  At the cost of not owning many of their own major works, they produced a stunning modernist body of work that defined abstract sculpture in glass in the 20th century.   

Inner Light focuses on a curated group of works, which showcase the extraordinary trajectory of the couple’s career.  Many of the works in the exhibition were sourced from one, in-depth, private collection built over a thirty-year personal relationship with the Libenskýs.  Two of the largest works, Sphere in Cube and Cube in Sphere come from the gallery’s personal holdings and were acquired twenty years ago from The Inner Light exhibition at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma Washington.  The massive T-Head sculpture was included in Heller Gallery’s In the Presence of Angels exhibition in 2000.  It has resided in a private collection since then and is now once again available.

Stanislav Libenský (1921-2002) & Jaroslava Brychtová (1924-2020) are world-renown Czech artists who created some of the defining cast glass sculptures and architectural installations of the 20th century.  During a life and artistic partnership, which lasted almost 50 years, they explored the optical and physical aspects of glass to develop a body of work concerning form, light and color. Their sculptural legacy ranges from luminous geometry to spiritual figuration. 

Artist and writer Robert Kehlmann, said of their work that ‘the glass sculpture of Libenský and Brychtová exists in a class of its own. Successful art leads us to fresh understanding of the world we live in.  It excites our eyes and our minds, nurturing us to see, feel and think in new ways. And this is precisely what we experience when looking at Libenský and Brychtová’s sculpture. It touches the inner-core of our being.’ 

Their works are included in the permanent collections of major museums worldwide including the National Gallery, Prague and the Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, Czech Republic, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom; Musée des Arts Decoratifs du Louvre, Paris, France; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Kunstmuseum, Tampere, Finland; Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic; Museum Bellerive, Zürich, Switzerland; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Germany; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Suomen Lassimuseo/Finnish Glass Museum, Rihimaki, Finland, Corning Museum of Glass, Corning; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Sapporo, Japan. 

Heller Gallery has been privileged to represent Libenský & Brychtová since 1980.