Stanislav Kolíbal

* 1925

  • “This forced labor was not easy at all because I was assigned not to work at mining coal but instead at a stone quarry. We had to blaze a new tunnel for those trains which were about to transport coal. It was in the eighth underground floor, very deep, at the lowest level. We would work for thirteen days straight and only then get a day off. It was fairly demanding if you take into consideration that we had to work eight hours daily. And as a miner, one would need additional time to wash, change clothes and get home. How much time for rest do you think we had left?”

  • “The first person I had met in Vence, the morning after arrival when I was about to register with the police, was Marc Chagall. Marc Chagall had lived in Vence. He went to see the gallery of one young artist on a stipend who had an exhibition in Vence’s square and who was awarded Chagall’s Prize. As I walked close behind Chagall, this young Polish artist introduced me to him and told him: ‘This is the guy who just arrived from Prague.’ And Chagall replied: ‘You came from Prague? Each and every day we are following what is happening in there.’ He voiced his concerns about it all taking the wrong turn because he had his experience. And so it did.”

  • “I was one of the last people to go through the vetting. I was in danger of not being allowed to continue with my studies. Suddenly they swarmed against me, citing my anti-regime and anti-socialism statements. It turned into a big debate and a question whether such a student should at all be allowed to stay at the university. Eventually it all turned in my favor with a certain limitation – I could not work in the graphics workroom but instead was able to go on studying. Antonín Pelc served as head of the vetting commission back then but he was being helpful. When they told me that I was allowed to stay, one student presented his statement which I repeat to myself to this day: ‘You can stay but I will tell you who you are. You are a traitor of the worker’s class.’ With this profile I graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design.“

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    Praha, 21.03.2015

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    Praha, 21.03.2015, 09.04.2015

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“Overcoming hardships strengthened me for upcoming battles.”

Stanislav Kolíbal
Stanislav Kolíbal
photo: natáčení ED

Professor Stanislav Kolíbal was born on the 11th of December 1925 in Orlová to a worker’s family. After graduating from elementary school in Orlová in 1936, he began studying at a Czech grammar school. After the Polish annexation of the Těšín region, his family moved to Ostrava where he continued his studies. In the spring of 1944 he was assigned to forced labor at Ostrava’s mine František. In the summer of 1944 he got accepted to a school of arts, architecture and design but only began studying after the end of the war in October 1945. He just about passed the post-February 1948 student vetting and in 1951 graduated from prof. Antonín Strnadel’s atelier of applied graphics. He furthered his studies at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, graduating in stage design in 1954. In 1952, he got married to the sculptor Vlasta Prachatická with whom he raised two children. Since 1952, he was a member of the Association of Visual Artists. In 1960-1970, he was a member of the artists’ group UB-12. He has worked in book illustration, graphics, stage design but became best known as a sculptor and conceptual artist. From 1973 - 1980 he was banned from exhibitions and sale of artworks on the Czechoslovak territory. From 1990-1993, he was the head of the Sculpture-Installation Department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He took part in a number of individual and group exhibitions, his works are presented in the world’s prominent galleries and he had undertaken many foreign study visits. His works are documented in monographs and exhibition catalogues, the newest one being Sculpture and Projects (published in Prague, 2012). In 2005, he received the Czech Medal of Merit for his work in the field of fine arts.