Jan Fišar – Weight of Time

Exhibition period: November 2020 – February 2021

To pay tribute to the legendary artist Jan Fišar (1933–2010): On the tenth anniversary of his death, we are exhibiting the last available sculptures on our top floor. This retrospective features his very first glass sculpture, Head (1967), as well as his final work, Predator (2010).

Jan Fišar grew up in Prague, where he studied sculpture under Professor Wágner. In 1966, the prominent glass artists Professor Stanislav Libenský and his wife Jaroslava Brychtová invited him to collaborate on their project for the 1967 World Exposition in Montreal. This marked his first encounter with glass art—an experience that unexpectedly defined his entire artistic future.

Fišar created glass sculptures that stand entirely on their own, outside the prevailing movements of contemporary glass art. His diverse body of work reflects strong emotional and philosophical content. Some of his pieces consist of complex compositions of slumped, sunken, and cut hollow glass – a technique unique in the world. In one of his later creative phases, he developed a method that allowed his sculptures to visibly bear the marks of their making, generating a compelling visual tension through cut and raw surfaces.

His works are held in major national and international museum collections, including the Corning Museum of Glass (USA), the National Gallery in Prague (Czech Republic), the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa (Japan), and the Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf (Germany).

Jan Fišar – Weight of Time – Exhibition Video