Marie Uchytilová

Memorial plaque for Marie Uchytilová in Kladno

Marie Uchytilová (born January 17, 1924 in Královice , † November 16, 1989 in Prague ) was a Czech sculptor and medalist . Among other things, she created the monument to the children of Lidice and designed the Czechoslovak one-crown coin, which was in circulation from 1957 to 1993.

Life

Marie Uchytilová was born in Okres Kladno (German: District Kladen) in the former Czechoslovakia as the daughter of an employee. From 1927 she spent her childhood and studies in Pilsen, where she studied sculpture with Otakar Walter. From 1945 to 1950 she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague ( Czech Academy výtvarných umění v Praze (AVU)) with Otakar Španiel . She then taught at the Václav Hollar Art School (Výtvarná škola Václava Hollara) in Prague. In 1949 daughter Sylvia was born.

Ever since she was a student, she had been interested in creating a memorial for the millions of children who had died in wars. She made tons of sketches until in 1969 she started working on the memorial for the killed children from Lidice, a Czech village that was destroyed by the Nazis in World War II. She devoted most of her life to creating a group of 82 bronze figures to commemorate the children who were deported to the Kulmhof extermination camp near Chełmno in the summer of 1942 and killed in gas vans .

Plaster models in the side chapel of the Mariánská Týnice Church , Mariánský Týnec

Together with her husband, the Czech sculptor, painter and designer Jiří Václav Hampl (born September 10, 1929 in Prague), who was involved in the realization of the monument in Lidice, she built a studio in Hodkovičky, Prague 4 , in which she made the plaster designs created. All of their savings and income went into this project. Inquiries to the Ministry of Culture asking for support were in vain. Only a few family members, friends and the women and mothers from Lidice who wanted the memorial to be erected on the site of the destroyed village support them initially.

The work in her workshop with plaster dust, moisture, cold and constant climbing on the stepladder began to affect Marie Uchytilová's health. She repeatedly suffered from pneumonia , bronchitis and progressive osteoarthritis , but continued to work until her death. She became seriously ill in late 1989 and died of a heart attack in a Prague hospital on November 16. It was left to her husband to finish the job in cast bronze. He was instrumental in completing the group of sculptures in 2000, thirty years after Uchytilová began her work and eleven years after her death.

Awards and honors

In 2004 a memorial plaque was unveiled at Marie Uchytilová's birthplace on Dělnická Street in Královice. In 2013 she was posthumously awarded the Czech President Miloš Zeman for her work with the Czech Medal of Merit in the first stage (silver-gold-plated), which her daughter Sylvia accepted on her behalf at Prague Castle . She also took honorary citizenship of Lidice for her mother in January 2007 and that of Pilsen in October 2018.

Work (selection)

Single crown coin signed with UCHYTILOVÁ

In 1956, Marie Uchytilová won a public competition to design the Czechoslovak one-crown coin , secretly recreating the female figure on the coin of the nineteen-year-old political prisoner Bedřiška Synková, who was sentenced to ten years in prison by the Czech communist government in 1954 for running a scout organization even though it had been banned by the communists. She used a photo as a template, which she had requested of Bedřiška's mother, who worked at the same school as herself. The coins were in circulation until 1993.

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  Božena Němcová, Česká Skalice

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  Mourners, Žďár nad Sázavou

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  Mourners, detail

As a medalist, she created coins and commemorative medals for Czech personalities. She also made busts and sculptures of personalities of Czech culture, such as the writer Božena Němcová in Česká Skalice , the actor Martin Růžek, Josef Moučka and the Prague Archbishop Josef Beran . In Žďár nad Sázavou in the middle of an urn grove near the Trinity Church on Horní Street stands her figure of a grieving woman in flowing clothes from 1982.

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The memorial for the children of Lidice consists of 82 larger-than-life bronze statues depicting the children from the destroyed village, from toddlers to adolescents. The Nazis destroyed Lidice on June 10, 1942 in retaliation after the murder of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich . 173 men were shot in the village, women were interned in a concentration camp and the children, with the exception of a few who were selected for Germanization, were murdered by the Nazis in the extermination camp using gas. A total of 340 Lidice residents died. After the war, 143 women and 17 children returned.

Memorial in Lidice

Between 1980 and 1989, Uchytilová met several times with the surviving mothers, who described the characters and events with the children and had photos of them shown. After that, she modeled her plaster designs, but took care to avoid too great a resemblance. The plaster models had only been made by 1989 and the first three statues were cast in bronze at their own expense. After Uchytilová's death, there was no money for the bronze and the casting of the statues. Her husband Jiří Hampl managed to raise money for 21 statues over the years. From 1994 the Danish town of Albertslund , twin town of the Central Bohemian town of Říčany , collected around three million crowns, the sum for a third of the sculptures. Other investors, mostly foreign investors, also donated money to cast the sculptures in bronze.

Lidice's mother , Kladno

In the spring of 1995, a concrete foundation was poured at the selected location within the extensive memorial and the first thirty statues were erected, others followed from summer 1996 at irregular intervals. The last seven were revealed on June 10, 2000. The 42 girls and 40 boys stand together as a group and overlook the grounds of the former village. The "Rose Garden of Friendship and Peace" borders the monument.

Thanks to another financial donation of several hundred thousand crowns from the residents of Albertslund in Denmark, another statue of Marie Uchytilová - Lidice's mother (also Madonna of Lidice ) was erected in front of the grammar school in Kladno . It marks the place where the Lidice children were forcibly separated from their mothers. The sculpture depicts a mother with two children, a toddler leaning against her and an infant who is being held by the mother. However, the children are only embedded in the figure of the mother as a negative form and thus underline the intention of the work, the representation of the absence of children.

Web links

Commons : Marie Uchytilová  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Eva Barborková: Plzeň udělila čestné občanství i pět historických pečetí . In: Page of the City of Pilsen from October 28, 2018 (Czech). Retrieved February 9, 2020
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Lidice Memorial: The memorial to the child victims of war . Retrieved February 6, 2020
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Tamara Wölffelová: Nelehký osud sochařky Marie Uchytilové . In: Muzeum Boženy Němcové in Česká Skalice from June 16, 2013 (Czech). Retrieved February 4, 2020
4. ↑ Deník.cz: Sylvia Klánová: Jsem pyšná na maminčiny lidické děti Zdroj from November 15, 2013 (Czech). Retrieved February 9, 2020
5. ^ ^{A b c} Brent J. Steele: Alternative Accountabilities in Global Politics: The Scars of Violence . Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-63269-0 , p. 124
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Josef Kopecký: Zeman udělí státní vyznamesání autorce sochy lidických dětí . In: Mladá fronta Dnes (IDnes) from June 15, 2013 (Czech). Retrieved February 5, 2020
7. ↑ Pamet národa : Sylvia Klánová . (Czech) Retrieved February 9, 2020
8. ^ Daniela Lazarová: The incredible story of the girl on the one crown coin . In: Radio Praha International, July 3, 2015. Accessed February 4, 2020
9. ^ Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team: The Massacre at Lidice . Retrieved February 6, 2020
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Renata Červenková: Lidice? In: Mladá fronta Dnes (IDnes) of June 18, 2000 (Czech). Retrieved February 5, 2020
11. ^ Foundation Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe: Lidice Memorial . Retrieved February 6, 2020
12. ↑ Robert Božovský: Lidickou Matku u gymnázia zkrášlí růže Zdroj . In: Deník.cz of August 17, 2009. Accessed February 9, 2020