The Czech glassmaking along with music represents the best cultural activity of the Czech and Slovak Lands since middle ages. In the 19th century the very first glass experts commented already that nothing has spread the name of Bohemia so well as its glass This situation was repeated after the World War II.. The new glass designed by the Czech and Slovak artists became worldly famous phenomenon.
Although endless rows of the exhibitions of the Czechoslovakian glass have been hold in USA, Japan, Korea, China, and European countries, the exhibition glass émigrés has never been organized. These people left the former Czechoslovakia and spread the knowledge and mastery of the home country glass in other cultural contexts. Many of those people absolutely changed the face of that field in Australia, France, Belgium and the USA. Their work is known in those countries, however the roots and benefits of the education in the birth country is not highlighted enough.
In spite that those artists prevailing emigrated before 1989 when we can speak about Czechoslovakian glass we expect to call the project similarly. However significant part of the project are the artists of Slovak origin, so in respect to Slovak current independence we call the project now Czech and Slovak glass in Exile.
The show is going to attract not only for the international academia, but for the art lovers of the all nations, or and for the uninformed public, which will meet visually unique glass pieces with pleasure. Such project has never been realized and its research value is enormous.
The exhibition is held under the auspices of Mr Karel Schwarzenberg, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic
The exhibition is going to be accompanying by an academic catalogue. The catalogue - book is related to the another book project Czech Glass printed by the Publishing house Gallery in Prague in 2001. The Czech Glass was awarded by a National award a title The Most Beautiful Book of the year 2001 thanks to the graphic layout by Professor Rostislav Vaněk.
The Czech Glass in Exile follows the subject of the Czech and Slovak glass and its international relations from art historian point of view. A cultural and political context is not primarily, but explicitly presented. The main criteria is not national, but contextual. For example; in Germany there were many of those, who were born in the Czechoslovakia before war, however they studied in their new country. These glass artists are not include of the project. In opposite, we are mentioning important foreigners, who studied in Prague and who carry out basically Czech approach to the glass art. In the project we are going to present 27 artists, from them 6 Slovaks and 3 foreigners ( English, Croatian and USA - Bulgarian)
The exhibition idea is to introduce the Czech and Slovak individual glass after 1945, of which design was conceived abroad. From the structure point of view the contemporary and recent pieces are prevailing. Just a minor part of the exhibition are historical pieces which are related to the context. These are works of the prime Czech émigrés from the 18th and 19th Centuries, and their pieces come from the collections of Moravian Gallery and the Museum of Decorative Art in Prague, the Museum in Lausha - in negotiation (altogether 14 items).
