Helena Johnová

Helena Johnová (born January 22, 1884 in Soběslav ; † February 14, 1962 in Prague ) was a Czech ceramist and sculptor for the Artěl and Wiener Werkstätte and a professor at the Prague Academy of Art, Architecture and Design . She is considered one of the most important pioneers for the development of modern ceramics in Czechoslovakia .

life and work

Helena Johnová was born on January 22nd, 1884 as the daughter of Louisa (née Fiedlerová) and the biology teacher Jan John in Soběslav near Tábor . The parents were extremely reluctant to support their daughter's endeavors to train as a sculptor . In 1899, they allow their daughter to enroll in the embroidery class at the School of Applied Arts in Prague . Here she attended the courses of Wilhelmina Kudelková and Ida Krauthová. However, embroidery gave her little pleasure, so in 1901 she switched to a ladies' school for drawing and painting . Here she learned drawing from nature in courses from Emilia Krostová and received instruction in anatomy and descriptive geometry from the medical historian Ondřej (Andreas) Schrutz. From 1903 to 1907 she took further courses in flower and nude painting with Jakub Schikaneder , Jan Beneš and Josef Schusser. As a guest student in the chemical laboratory of the School of Applied Arts, she learned the basics for the production of ceramics and glazes in the following two years .

In 1907 she met the textile designer Marie Teinitzerová , with whom she shared an apartment in the “Zum Mohren” house in Prague. Together with the graphic designers Jaroslav Benda and Vratislav Hugo Brunner, the architects Pavel Janák and Otakar Vondráček, the painter Jan Konůpek and the art patron Alois Dyk, both were founding members of the Artěl artist group , which was founded in 1908 on the initiative of the art patron Václav Vilém Štech in Prague.

In December 1907 she began a two-month internship in Carl Kristena's ceramic workshop in Walbrzych . Then she went to the Ceramic College in Bechyně for a few months . After returning to Prague, she rented a pottery workshop and began designing her own ceramics. Unsatisfied with the initial failures when firing ceramics, Helena Johnová applied for a job at a Berlin ceramic manufacturer in order to continue her education. Because she was a foreigner, she was denied employment in Berlin.

In 1908 she made glass jewelry from Gablonz glass and glass curtains for the Artěl sales point at 32 Kaprova Street . In autumn 1908 Helena Johnová received a state scholarship to study at the Vienna School of Applied Arts , which she began on January 4, 1909. In Vienna she took courses with Alfred Roller , Friedrich Linke, Emil Adam and Josef Breitner . In the same year Michael Powolny took over the management of the ceramics department at the School of Applied Arts. In addition to his courses, Johnová also attended classes with Adele von Stark , where she learned the basics of working with email .

In 1911 the architect Dušan Jurkovič offered her the artistic direction of the ceramic factory in Modra . However, Helena Johnová only stayed in Modra for a short time and on September 25, 1911, together with Ida Schwetz-Lehmann and Rosa Neuwirth, founded the Ceramic Works Cooperative with its headquarters at Mollardgasse 85a in Vienna. While Helena Johnová designed mainly folk ceramics for the company , Ida Schwetz-Lehmann and Rosa Neuwirth were stylistically influenced by Wiener Werkstätte and Royal Copenhagen .

In parallel to her work in Vienna, she took over the folk art department at the Moravian Central Office for Applied Arts in Brno for one year in 1912 . In Vienna she ran a social salon together with other Czech artists. Before the First World War she continued to supply Artěl sales outlets with her ceramics. She regularly took part in exhibitions of the Association of Austrian Women Artists (1912-1914) and the Museum for Art and Industry (1913/14) and in 1914 at the Cologne Werkbund exhibition. Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, she went on a study trip to Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

In 1918 Helena Johnová went to Prague, where she taught as a professor at the School of Applied Arts from 1919. It was here that she began building a ceramic studio in 1921. In the 1920s she devoted herself increasingly to the design of flower sculptures and experimented with different glazes. From 1927 until 1939 she directed the ceramic courses at the School of Applied Arts. At the beginning of the 1930s she also commissioned some portraits in the New Objectivity style and worked on the renovation of the castle in Nové Město nad Metují : for example, she designed a 2.10 × 2 meter ceramic fireplace cladding for the large work room of the castle , Niche panels and decorative flower sculptures.

Fountain in the garden of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (Helena Johnová, around 1939)

In 1931 Helena Johnová ended her work at the Ceramic Works Cooperative in Vienna. She made several study trips to France, Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece in the 1930s. From the mid-1930s she made several large ceramic sculptures. Since 1934 she has designed a monumental, folk Christmas crib made of ceramic for the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague , which, however, was no longer realized after the invasion of the German Wehrmacht . A large ceramic fountain she made was installed in the garden of the Museum of Applied Arts in the late 1930s.

After her retirement in 1939, she continued teaching to a limited extent. In 1944 she was forced to leave school for good. At the invitation of the Bartoň-Dobenín family, she spent the last months of the Second World War in the castle in Nové Město nad Metují. The textile entrepreneur Cyril Bartoň-Dobenín was an important patron of the arts and acquired an extensive collection of Helena Johnová's ceramics.

Few allegorical flower sculptures by Helena Johnová have survived from the post-war period . She headed the ethnographic collection of the National Museum in Prague . On the occasion of her 75th birthday, a large retrospective of her stylistically very diverse works was shown in Prague .

Helena Johnová died on February 14, 1962 in Prague.

Memberships, exhibitions and reception

Helena Johnová was one of the founding members of Artěl , the Ceramic Works Cooperative and the Austrian and Czech Werkbunds. Since 1914 she was an extraordinary member of the Association of Austrian Women Artists and since 1919 a member of the Prague Manés Art Association.

The objects designed by Helena Johnová have been shown at numerous exhibitions since 1910, including a. in Vienna at the Museum of Applied Arts (1911; 1912, 1969), in Cologne at the Werkbund exhibition (1914), in Paris at the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modern (1925), in Brno (1928, 1976, 1981), in Prague at the exhibition of the Mánes Artists' Association (1929) and the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague (1978, 2005) and in Hamburg (1968).

Her works are now in various art and design museums, u. a. shown in the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague, in the Museum of Applied Arts Vienna or in the Grassi Museum in Leipzig.

In November 2010, the Czech Post issued a 20 CZK special stamp designed by Michal Vitanovský with the motif of the ceramic fireplace lining designed by Helena Johnová from the castle in Nové Město nad Metují .

Literature by and about Helena Johnová (selection)

• Lidové hračky , 1965
• Lidové umění Jugoslávie , 1966
• Lidové jesličky , 1967
• Folk Christmas cribs , 1967
• Culture and life of the Czechoslovak people , 1967
• Lidové hřebeny do vlasů v Československu , 1967
• Horácké dřevěné hračky , 1976
• Lidové umění jižní oblasti velkomad'arské nížiny , 1979
• Jewellery. Folk art from Slovakia , 1986
• Helena Johnová Keramika , exhibition catalog, 1987

Works (selection)

• Jewelry, around 1908, Wiener Werkstätte archive
• Glass jewelry, curtains: Night in Venice , apple flower , lantern , wheat field
• Vessel with cock , 1910
• Madonna , 1910/11
• Bowl with two taps , 1911
• Vessel with the pigeon , 1911
• Earthly love , 1912
• Table decoration with putto and figures with fish, dog, sheaf and garland of fruit , 1913
• Moses the Foundling , 1913
• Chodin , 1916, (part of the group of folk costumes )
• Couple from Pilsen , 1917 (part of the group of folk costumes )
• Couple from Leitomischl , 1917 (part of the group of folk costumes )

Earthly Love (1912)
,
Moravská gallery , Brno Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

• Woman figure from Blatná , 1917 (part of the group of folk costumes )

Dandelion (1926)
,
Moravská gallery , Brno Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

• Female figure from Jungbunzlau , 1918 (part of the group of folk costumes )

• Meeting at the well , 1918
• Hanaken group , 1919 (part of the group of folk costumes )
• Dandelion , 1926
• Tea & Mocha Service, 1927/28, from the ceramics Aktien-Gesellschaft in Bechyně for Krasna jizba made
• Portrait bust Naděžda Melniková-Papoušková , 1928
• Portrait bust Jan John , 1931
• Portrait bust of Mrs. Burian , 1931
• Forget-me-not , 1931
• Decoration of the chateau in Nové Město nad Metují (including fireplace panels, niches, decorative flower sculptures), 1928–1936
• Bethlehem , design for the crib for St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, 1934–1938 (not realized)
• Ceramic fountain and vases for the garden of the Kunstgewerbe-Museum, 1938
• Allegorical flower sculptures (from around 1945)
• Basket with roses , after 1950

Individual evidence

1. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 12 .
2. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 16 .
3. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 18 .
4. ^ Gabriele Fahr-Becker: Wiener Werkstätte. 1903-1932 . Ed .: Angelika Taschen. Taschen, Hong Kong 2008, ISBN 978-3-8228-3771-9 , pp. 224 .
5. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 20 .
6. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 21 .
7. ↑ Ilse Korotin: BiografiA: Lexicon of Austrian women . 1st edition Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-205-79590-2 , p. 1507 .
8. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 23 .
9. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 26 .
10. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 27 .
11. ↑ Jana Horneková: Art deco: Boemia, from 1918 to 1938 . Electa, Milano 1996, ISBN 88-435-5852-8 , pp. 44 .
12. ^ Lydia Thienen-Adlerflycht: Helena Johnová. A (patriotic) craftswoman . Ed .: University of Vienna. Vienna 2008, p. 28 .
13. ↑ CZECHDESIGN.CZ: Artěl - CZECHDESIGN. Retrieved February 13, 2020 . 
14. ^ List of members of the Manes Association. Retrieved February 13, 2020 (cze). 
15. ↑ New Issues and News on Postage Stamps of the Czech Republic in 2010Reissues and News on Postage Stamps of the Czech Republic in 2010. Accessed February 14, 2020 . 

Web links

• Johnová, Helena . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 78, de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-023183-0 , pp. 178–1788.
• sbirky.moravska-galerie.cz Works by Helena Johnová