Diagonal (glass sculpture)

In the 1950s, a new form of glass art was born. Studio glass was a movement that gradually broke through the fetters of industrial production, experimenting with new materials and techniques and creating glass objects with autonomous artistic value. In Czechoslovakia, the foremost glass artists of the time were Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, who started working together in the Železný Brod glassworks in 1954. Both worked as glass designers and were responsible for outstanding industrial products, architectural glass and moulded sculpture. The most characteristic feature of Libenský and Brychtová's work is something developed solely for glass, not reproducible in any other material: colours that take effect in space as light passes through the object. Their glowing, vivid red 1987 sculpture builds on the life-giving power of light, its colour and form, under illumination, generating a dynamic and expressive effect.