Bohumil Kafka

Bohumil Kafka

Bohumil Kafka (born February 14, 1878 in Neupaka , Austria-Hungary , † November 24, 1942 in Prague , Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ) was a Czech sculptor and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

Life

He attended elementary school between 1884 and 1892 in his home town. Finally he went to Horschitz in the Giant Mountains , where he learned the stonemasonry and sculpture. In 1897 he moved to Prague and enrolled at the Academy for Art, Architecture and Design there , where he was taught by Stanislav Sucharda . After contacting Josef Václav Myslbek , he also became his student. He then continued his studies in Vienna and Paris . In Paris - where he lived between 1904 and 1908 - he was mainly interested in the work of Auguste Rodin , which had a major influence on his work. He also had his first own exhibition in Paris in 1904. Study trips to London , Berlin and Rome followed.

After his return he worked first in the studio of his teacher Stanislav Sucharda, where he worked as Sucharda's assistant in the creation of the Prague monument to František Palacký . The monument was inaugurated in 1912.

After Sucharda's death in 1916, he became a professor at the Prague Academy of Art, Architecture and Design. In 1925 he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

Kafka was the creator of numerous monuments which he mainly created in the style of Art nouveau (secession) and symbolism . He was an extremely successful artist. He also created numerous busts of well-known figures in society; so he created busts of Bedřich Smetana , Jaroslav Vrchlický , Edvard Beneš , Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk etc.

Bohumil Kafka was a recipient of high French and Czechoslovakian awards. He died in Prague on November 24, 1942 and was buried in the Vyšehrad cemetery in Prague.

Work (selection)

Small jobs

• 1919 The Kiss (bronze)
• 1922 Orfeus (bronze)
• 1925 bust of TG Masaryk (bronze)
• 1926 The Awakening (marble)
• Monument to the painter Josef Mánes (bronze) below the Vltava bridge of the same name in Prague.

Monumental works

Monument to General Milan Rastislav Štefánik in Bratislava (German: Pressburg)

The original monument

Copy of the statue of Milan Rastislav Štefánik in front of the New Slovak National Theater in Bratislava

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Czechoslovakia in 1928, the wish was expressed to decorate the former coronation hill square with a memorial. After an artist competition, Kafka was commissioned on October 28, 1928 to erect a monument in honor of General Milan Rastislav Štefánik. The original conception of the monument envisaged a larger than life - cast in ore - figure of Štefánik in a pilot's uniform, which was surrounded by four huge pillars (pylons) - which were supposed to be crowned by lions. The four lions were supposed to hold the four coats of arms of the then Czechoslovakia (ČSR) countries in their paws. According to the original schedule, the monument was to be unveiled on October 28, 1935. Since the work was repeatedly delayed, the deadline could not be met for various reasons. However, in circles of nationally conscious Slovaks, the monument - the "Czechoslovakian" Štefánik - met with increasing resistance. Therefore a second variant was presented, which now only provided for a lion. In 1938 the monument was realized in a modified form. In June 1940 the statue of the lion was removed (at the instigation of Adolf Hitler ); the memorial survived the Second World War unscathed . After the communists came to power, the time seemed to have come to liquidate the "bourgeois Štefánik legend". And so on March 31, 1954, the Štefánik statue was dismantled on the square, which was hermetically sealed by the police, and melted down around 1970.

See also : “Destruction of the Maria Theresa Monument and the later fate of the square” in the article Námestie Ľudovíta Štúra

The new monument

After the fall of the Wall it was decided to rebuild the Štefánik monument. Using the remaining fragments of the old monument, as well as smaller models of the original monument from Kafka's time, the statue was to be reconstructed and re-cast to its original size. The work for the new casting was carried out according to the original Kafka templates in the DSB Blansko foundry in the Czech Republic in 2006 and was completed in November 2007. The finished sculpture was installed on April 20, 2009 in front of the building of the New Slovak National Theater on the banks of the Danube .

Monument of Jan Žižka von Trocnov on Vitus Hill in Prague

Equestrian statue of Ján Žižka on Vitus Hill in Prague

The equestrian statue of Jan Žižka is the third largest equestrian statue in the world. It was cast in bronze in individual parts and then assembled. Kafka made the first drafts for the statue in 1931. In November 1941 he made a first plaster model of the statue. Because of the war, the statue could not be realized for the time being, the artist who died in 1942 could not see his finished work. The casting could only be finished after the war. The inauguration took place on July 14, 1950. The statue has considerable dimensions: height 9.0 meters, length 9.6 meters and has a weight of 16.5 tons. The statue is considered a 'national monument' by the Czechs. It is located on Veitsberg ( Czech : Vítkov ) in the Žižkov district .

literature

• Petr Wittlich: Bohumil Kafka. Příběh sochaře (1878–1942) , Karolinum 2014, ISBN 978-802-462-614-7

Web links

• More information (Czech)
• Bohumil Kafka on artnet.de
• Socha Štefánika už stojí pri Dunaji (Slovak)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In Horschitz in 1884 the kuk technical school for the processing of stone was founded, which was considered one of the oldest in the world. A number of well-known sculptors were trained in this school.
2. ↑ That was 1. Bohemia , 2. Moravia ( with Silesia ), 3. Slovakia , 4. Carpathian Ukraine
3. ↑ quoted from Anton Klipp: Preßburg. New views on an old city. Karpatendeutsches Kulturwerk, Karlsruhe 2010, ISBN 978-3-927020-15-3 , pp. 81–82.
4. ↑ The statue is 7.4 meters tall and weighs 5.5 tons . The lion, which stands on a pillar 18.9 meters high, is 3.8 meters high and weighs 5.8 tons.
5. ↑ The idea of ​​building a 'National Monument' on the Vitusberg goes back to the year 1877. However, the construction of the entire complex did not begin until 1928. The work was to be completed in 1938 and the memorial was inaugurated. Because of the Munich Agreement , this project could not be realized. Therefore the inauguration took place after the war.
6. ↑ named after St. Vitus