Stanislav Libensky

Husband and wife team, Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtová, were preeminent makers of glass sculpture on an architectural scale, and collaborated artistically beginning in 1954. Libensky was head professor of the Glass Studio at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague. Brychtová is a sculptor, who pioneered the technology of melting crushed glass in molds to create large-scale glass sculptures. The couple lived in the Ore Mountains in the current Czech Republic, where glassmakers have lived and worked since the fourteenth century. Working in the former Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia, glass artists were ironically allowed more freedom in exploring contemporary Western art movements such as abstraction. Through their work and through Libensky's students at the Academy of Applied Arts, the couple was at the forefront of contemporary art during a period of repression in other media. Their influence has been strong especially in the United States, since they taught at the Pilchuck Glass School in the mid 1980s.

Education: Academy of Applied Arts, Prague, Czechoslovakia