Quick Bio

Vladimír Kopecký (born 1931) handles paint in a way that would categorize him as a painter, yet his capacity to master other forms of expression emphasize his versatility in both thought and technique. Between his sense of spatiality and his use of various media, he has pioneered the world movement of individual expression in glass, and his singular art form has made him a leading figure of modern art in former Czechoslovakia, as well as in the contemporary Czech Republic. Working with abstraction, Kopecký has been equally fascinated by exact geometry as much as by expressive, gestural techniques. Alternating between various media, styles, and scales, Kopecký’s pioneering work has been consistently represented across Europe, North America and Asia at public exhibitions, as part of institutional collections, or architectural works on commission. His work has, for instance, been exhibited at the World Expo in Brussels in 1958, an event which constituted a milestone for glass art worldwide, at the Corning Museum of Glass, or the Yokohama Museum of Art. Kopecký’s practice has been discussed and studied in many publications. The artist’s work, including his poetic writings, was compiled in a number of catalogues and monographs. His legacy will also carry on through his indisputable influence on the generation of artists who studied under his tutelage at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague between the years 1990 and 2008.