An Exhibition Showcasing Works by Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský Opens at Heller Gallery in New York

They were the power couple of the studio glass movement: Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský. Innovators of the mold-melting technique, which casts the material into three-dimensional objects, sculptor Brychtová and painter Libenský met in 1954 in what’s now the Czech Republic, a center of glass manufacturing and craftmanship for centuries. Together, with him sketching designs and her producing clay sculptures of those designs, they were able to translate abstract concepts into pioneering colorful and light-capturing works that nod to Czech Cubism and metaphysical philosophy; their trio of large-scale sculptures at Expo ’67 are said to have influenced such American studio glass artists as Dale Chihuly. They and their work certainly influenced Dr. Dudley and Lisa Anderson, who, with the help of Katya and Doug Heller, have amassed a sizeable Brychtová-Libenský collection, several pieces of which are on display for the first time in “Inner Light” this spring at Heller Gallery in New York. The exhibition encompasses 19 sculptures from 1958 to 2002, the year of Libenský’s death, plus four of his drawings made while he and Brychtová, who died in 2020, were teaching at Washington’s Pilchuck Glass School in 1987.