With a sense of humor, you can survive just about anything
Zdeněk Macháček, a sculptor, was born on August 16th 1925 in Brno. His father ran a printing studio with many important figures of the per-war cultural scene as customers. The family had been living in the Masaryk District (Masarykova čtvrť). Zdeněk witnessed arrests and executions taking place in the nearby Kounic Residence Hall (Kounicovy koleje). At the end of the war, he had been sent to build air-raid shelters and witnessed the bombing of Brno. After 1945, he witnessed the decline of the family’s printing business. He studied zoology and anthropology at Masaryk University in Brno. In 1952, he graduated from the Higher School of Decorative Arts in Brno and joined the local art scene. While looking for a place to set up his studio, he found the village of Křížovice near the foothills of Vysočina, where he had moved in 1971 to build his studio. After 1990, he founded Remote Gallery (Galerie z ruky) and also helped to found several art groups and workshops. He had forty solo exhibitions and participated in more than sixty collective exhibitions.