Peter Mandl Sculptor - Studio GlassFollowing Mandl’s second, unsuccessful entrance exam, Professor...

Peter MandlSculptorWorks from 1996–2010

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Peter MandlSculptor

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Peter MandlSculptor

Calypso | 2010 | bronze | 71 x 49 x 30 cm

Works from 1996–2010

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My first encounter with Peter Mandl’s sculptures was in the Varden Gallery in Jeløya. I had not seen any of his work before, but was immediately captured by its de-sign and expressive character. Each sculpture struck me as unique, a refined combination of classical purity and a modern feeling of life, which is rarely found in works by sculptors today.

After looking closely at several of Mandl’s sculptures, my fascination became even greater, particularly with re-gard to how the classical and the modern have been fused together into a unified expression. Mandl’s many years of working with glass has probably been of importance here, as has his continental background. Peter Mandl was born in Czechoslovakia, was educated there and imbibed Euro-pean culture both through his family upbringing and his formal schooling.

With such a background, Mandl has had the best conditions to develop a sober design.The classic form of consciousness, so strikingly perceptible in his sculptures, is indicative of a genuine interest in Greek antiquity. And here we cannot disregard the sculpture Nike of Samothrace, probably the most beautiful female figure ever designed. The goddess of victory, Nike, expresses a wonderful com-bination of sensuality, strength and formal concentration. Nike represents sublime beauty.

In most of Peter Mandl’s sculptures, we sense the pres-ence his ideal of ancient beauty. But we also sense some-thing else, a completely different feeling of life, a modern awareness of the shape’s intrinsic value. In this way, we move far in the future, to the late eighteenth century and

early 1900s. Here, Mandl has undoubtedly been inspired by the creative strategies of Futurism and Cubism.

Such a demonstration of an artist’s role models or inspi-rations is in many ways a nuisance, since it easily disparag-es the artist’s individuality and independence. Sometimes it may mean something in itself, but about Mandl it must be said that his sculptures are marked by genuine original-ity. In his case, his sources of inspiration are merged into a unified expression that is alive and vibrating with its own autonomous force.

In a way, Mandl has given these historical inspirations new life. He has created a synthesis of classical and modern sensuality, where the individual sculpture turns into pure visual poetry. His female characters are extremely sensitive. They express grace and tenderness that is stabilized by a flowing, formal rhythm. This is beautiful and it is a true pleasure for both the eye and the mind.

English translation by Paul Mandl

Pleasure for the Eyes and the MindThe Sculptor Peter Mandl by Paul Grøtvedt

76 Cape Horn | 2008 | glass | 40 x 56 x 28 cm

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The first time I saw the sculptural and glass creations of Peter Mandl, I asked myself whether this was more a Swedish or a Czech sculptor and glass artist, given he has spent forty years of his life in Sweden. At a time when the differences (well apparent until recently) between the creative pur-suits of artists from various nations are becoming blurred, this may no longer seem a topical question at first glance. And yet I believe that in this particular case it is a relevant question. In order better to understand Mandl’s life story and artistic career, it is important to consider several facts of Europe’s modern history. The outcome of World War II determined the victorious powers’ resolution to split the Continent into Western and Eastern Europe. In the West, life was under the influence of the United States and demo-cratic ideals, while the Eastern bloc came under the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Seizing power in countries under its control, the Communists practiced the dictator-ship of the proletariat for the next fifty years.

I would not discuss these historical facts if they were not reflected Peter Mandl’s life and art. After the February 1948 Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, his father decided to emigrate with his family. However, his attempt was thwarted and he and other family members were punished. This “offence” was still on record in Peter’s per-sonal file well into the 1960s and was taken into account when Peter tried to enrol in one of the Czech secondary art schools. He was finally admitted to the Secondary Glass School of Applied Arts in Železný Brod. Despite his evident aptitude for further studies in the field of arts and crafts, he was not admitted to the school’s art department. Instead, he was allowed to enter the department for chemi-cal technology, and only then because other students had

such a limited interest in that area of study. The following year, the school’s director allowed Mandl to switch to the art department, namely to the studio for cut glass headed by the accomplished workshop instructor Břetislav Novák Sr. Novák was acknowledged for his distinctive approach to glass, especially for cutting forms to perfection and fin-ishing the glass surface using both traditional and innova-tive methods that he often devised himself. This made such an impression on Mandl as a young student that it is no surprise to find he still applies the same meticulous surface treatment to all of his glass and non-glass sculptures.

A number of students with exceptional artistic talents attended the Železný Brod glass school in the 1960s. Afterwards, they pursued their studies at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague, where they attended the art glass studio of Professor Stanislav Libenský. Mandl was among the applicants, but his tainted political profile thwarted both of his attempts to enrol in the Academy. Not giving up, he continued to seek further practical experience in glassmaking. While preparing for his third entrance exam to the Academy, he gradually improved his technical and artistic skills. He spent a year cutting glass in the Prague studio attached to the Centre for Artistic Crafts. In the 60s, the Centre was a meeting place for prominent figures of Czech art and culture – not only his glass artist colleagues, but also actors, singers, musicians, popular M.C.s, and writers.

Following Mandl’s second, unsuccessful entrance exam, Professor Libenský arranged for him to work with a team of glassmakers in the Železnobrodské sklo company in Železný Brod that implemented mould-melted glass sculp-

Peter Mandl: Sculptor and Glass Artist Antonín Langhamer, Director EmeritusMuseum of Glass and Jewellery, Jablonec nad Nisou, Czech Republic

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tures designed by Stanislav Libenský and his wife Jaroslava Brychtová. For Mandl, this year was particularly important for two other reasons as well: he could watch Brychtová in the process of moulding glass and Libenský critically assessed his sculptural work, thereby preparing him for his third entrance exam. Last but not least, the sculptor Jan Fišar taught Mandl to cast plaster moulds from clay models. In spring 1968, in a politically more tolerant at-mosphere, he was finally admitted to the art academy, but did not enrol in Libenský’s glass studio in autumn of that year. In August 1968, Czechoslovakia had been invaded by Soviet troops and Warsaw Pact armies. For the following two decades, the military occupation violently suppressed the country’s cultural and social life that had flourished so promisingly in the 60s.

Mandl’s father understood that for him and his fam-ily the only reasonable solution in this situation was to flee the country, and in this he was not wrong. Because he had finally been admitted to the university, Peter hesitated to leave Czechoslovakia, but following Professor Liben-ský’s advice he joined his family and emigrated.

As it happened, the Mandl family landed in Sweden, a country admired in Czechoslovakia since the 1920s for its modern glassmaking tradition. For the most progressive pioneers of innovative Czech art glass, Sweden was practi-cally a promised land during the two decades between the wars. This is why after 1968, Scandinavia was the first desti-nation of various Czech glass artist-émigrés. After complet-ing a four-month Swedish language course, Peter Mandl was accepted into Konstfackskolan (the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design). However, since the school had no special department devoted to art glass, he enrolled in the Studio of Sculpture headed by Professor Curt Thorsjö.

Initially, Mandl wished to apply himself to glass in Swe-den. The art school’s director therefore arranged a study sojourn for him at the school attached to the glassworks in Orrefors, where he spent several months familiarizing him-self with modern Swedish glass and the works’ industrial production, noted for its artistic and technical excellence.

After graduating from the Stockholm Konstfack-skolan, Mandl would have loved to work for one of Swe-den’s glassworks. First he sought employment as a glass designer in the Kosta glassworks, but he was turned down since the glassworks’ management found his glass “Czech”, rather than “Swedish”. He also tried for Orrefors, but with similar results. Later on, he was offered a position as a part-time glass artist-collaborator in a glassworks in Ba-

varia. The plant’s new owner was considering transforming its line of products, but the employees were adamantly op-posed as his innovative ideas would mean they would have to relinquish some of their standard working methods. They were not even convinced by the more than favourable recognition of Mandl’s very first collection of new glass at the Frankfurt fair or by the orders for particular glass products. And so he decided to leave.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Peter Mandl turned wholeheartedly to sculpture and became a sculptor. During the past fifteen years or so, he has successfully applied his experience gained in that profession to his own independ-ent art glass work.

Originally, Mandl cast his sculptures only in bronze. For the most part, they are figural and feature a well-con-ceived surface treatment. Despite their instantly apparent and indisputably artistic qualities, it took professionals in the field almost fifteen years to acknowledge his art. Ac-cording to art critics, his works exuded a central European cosmopolitan style. Inspired mainly by traditional subjects from antiquity and occasionally by classics of literature, Mandl’s figural sculptures do not even attempt to conceal their formal affinity with Bohemia’s Baroque sculptural tradition. As an admirer of the ingenious Baroque sculp-tor Matthias Bernhard Braun, Mandl had adopted this tradition even before he left Czechoslovakia. However, the artist and his creative output also seem to be influenced by the environment he lives and works in, with its omnipres-ent wind, sea and sweeping waves.

To this day, Mandl’s sculptural and glass output de-monstrates that his sculpture studies were a lucky decision for him and his artistic career. From the late 50s, Czech glass artists had strived to surmount the imaginary bound-aries between the functional purpose of glass and glass as an art form, and to put painting and sculpture on an equal footing. Beginning in the 1960s, but particularly in the 70s, numerous glass artists and designers realized that adopting creative methods distinctive of sculpture was an impor-tant prerequisite for their own art to achieve success in the international glass arena. In their view, presenting their works in group exhibitions together with those of painters and sculptors was one way of verifying that the course they had set out on was a correct one.

Mandl’s dynamic, flowing figural bronze statues Ari-adne I (1993), Ariadne II (2007), Eunice (2002), Eurynome (1999), Calliope (2006), Kallipygos (2008), Musica (2001), Nesaea (2000), Naiad I (1988), Naiad II (2005), The Three

Graces (1995), as well as Let’s Dance (2005), Ophelia (2005), and Winter Queen (2009) are certainly among the finest works that he has created so far. Irrespective of his first, not overly successful, attempts to bind his life and art to glass, Peter Mandl did not lose interest in this exquisite, yet extremely demanding material. Nor did he forget his early experiences gained in that medium; and so it was only a matter of time before he returned to working with glass.

Once again, and this time by a happy coincidence, his personal life and artistic career were affected by events of all-European significance, namely the political transforma-tions that occurred in late 1989 and early 1990 in the East-ern bloc. The dissolution of the Soviet Union, the ensuing collapse of the Communist regimes and the victory of democracy in all the countries under its sway had a propi-tious impact on Mandl’s further career. With the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall that had so unnaturally divided Western and Eastern Europe, state borders opened up for those who had emigrated from the Communist countries and had therefore been prevented from visiting their homelands.

Peter Mandl began to return to Czechoslovakia when-ever he wished. The foundry in Lysolaje was recommended to him as early as 1990 and he still casts his bronze sta-tues there to this day. He was able to meet with Professor Libenský once again, as well as with his former fellow students from the Železný Brod glass school. His meeting with Aleš Vašíček was perhaps of the greatest importance to Mandl. A highly acclaimed creator of mould-melted and cut glass sculptures, he cast several glass sculptures in his studio that were based on Mandl’s models. Mandl had worked in bronze until then, but he came to realize that mould-melted glass sculpture (a technique developed in Bohemia from the 1940s) was the glassmaking method that was closest to his creative sensibility. As he was now aware, glass could reproduce his artistic ideas as faithfully as metal, down to the finest details.

Mandl found another implementer of his glass concepts in Ivan Novotný, whose studio in Železný Brod centred on composite glass with a high lead content. A few years later, in 2006, he discovered a further collaborator-implementer in the newly founded Glasika studio run by Jiří Hyška and Lukas Kostal in Jirkov near Železný Brod. Hyška’s indi-vidual approach to the production of each sculptural piece suits Mandl. At first, Hyška prepares moulds made of fire-proof material. In an electric furnace, he then melts a glass batch in the moulds, producing glass blanks. Afterwards

he proceeds to cutting, polishing, or sandblasting the surface of each object, according to the artist’s designs and requirements, readying them for display at exhibitions or other public presentations.

Early on, Mandl entrusted his glass artist collabor-ators with executing in glass some of his figural sculptures origi-nally modelled for casting in bronze, among them Delilah, Helene, Kallipygos, Iphigenia, Hera, Nike I and II, and Winter Queen. Even more importantly, with their help he began to produce circular objects and sculptures that had already been intended for realization in glass from their concep-tion. He took to creating mould-melted and cut glass sculptures that were both novel to his sculptural work and unique as well: not only in form but also in the way they made exemplary use of their optical and colour properties in a way that could not be achieved in any other material. His Sea Eye (2008), Midnight Sun (2008), Blue Tube (2006), Cape Horn (2009), Déjà vu (2009), Pole Star (2009), Sleep-ing Glacier (2009), Big Gate (2003) and Circle (1998) are a few such pieces. His nearly one-metre-high Calima (2007), Figure I and II (2006) and Nike II (2007) glass sculptures, executed in the same fashion, are surprising not only for their fine artistic qualities but also their sizes that reach the very limits of the electric furnace’s capabilities.

Mandl’s tallest glass sculpture to date is a roughly five-metre-tall fountain called Neptune (1999). To create it, he had to choose a different technique – he assembled the fountain from slabs of flat glass.

Peter Mandl’s sculptural work is truly prolific. All his glass and metal sculptures are meticulously conceived and finished, even down to seemingly minor details. Nothing is left to chance because even such trifling aspects determine the objects’ singular, compelling nature.

I began this essay by asking whether Peter Mandl, who was born in Czechoslovakia and has lived in Sweden for over forty years, was a Swedish or Czech sculptor and glass artist. I now feel I know the answer: Peter Mandl is a Euro-pean artist.

English translation by Linda Paukertová

1312 Winter Queen | 2009 | bronze | 100 x 40 x 25 cm

1514 Ariadne II | 2007 | bronze | 73 x 21 x 32 cm

1918 Sea Eye | 2008 | glass | d. 62 cm

2322 Déjà vu | 2009 | glass | 38 x 60 x 30 cm

2726 Naiad II is in progress

2928 Midnight Sun | 2008 | glass | d. 60 cm

3130 Mystery | 2005 | glass | 70 x 25 x 36 cm

3332 Pole Star | 2009 | glass | d. 43 cm Blue Tube | glass | 2006 | d. 62 cm

3938 Eurynome | 1999 | bronze | 60 x 18 x 34 cm

4342 Small Gate | 2002 | glass | 61 x 29 x 25 cm

4746 Nike II | 150 x 64 x 20 cm progress for Oceania’s cruise ship Marina, 2010

4948 Figure II | 2006 | glass | 90 x 22 x 17 cm Circle | 1998 | glass | d. 53 cm

5150 Sleeping Glacier | 2009 | glass | 61 x 66 x 29 cm

5756 Musica | 1996 | bronze | 96 x 25 x 30 cm

6564 Bent Space | 2008 | glass | 60 x 83 x 28 cm

7372 Ophelia | 2005 | bronze | 60 x 25 x 17 cm Kallipygos (detail)

7776 Top: Ottenby konstgård 2006Middle: Galleri Kjeldaas, Oslo 2010; Galleri New form 2007; Stadsgalleriet Laholm 2009Bottom: Galleri New Form 2009; Lidingö konsthall 2009; Galleri Kjeldaas, Oslo 2010

7978 Muse | 2010 | glass | 54 x 20 x 12 cm

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March 4, 1947 Born in Prague.

1962–1966 Attended at the Secondary Glass School of Applied Arts in Železný Brod.

1968 Admitted to the art glass studio of Professor Stanislav Libenský at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague. After the August 1968 military intervention in Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact armies, he emigrated with his parents to Sweden.

1968–1972 Enrolled in the Sculpture Studio under Professor Curt Thorsjö at Konstfackskolan (the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design) in Stockholm. After graduation, he sought employment as a glass designer at the Swedish glassworks in Kosta and Orrefors, and the Beyer & Co. glassworks in Bavaria.

1980s Took up figural bronze cast sculpture.

As of 1989 Started visiting Czechoslovakia (and later the Czech Republic). Began to collaborate with the foundry in Lysolaje. Met once again with Professor Stanislav Libenský and some of his fellow students from the Železný Brod glass school. In his glass studio, Aleš Vašíček produced Mandl’s first glass sculptures based on the artist’s designs.

After 1998 Produced mould-melted and cut glass sculpture in Ivan Novotný’s glass studio in Železný Brod.

As of 2006 Created mould-melted and cut glass sculpture in the Glasika studio run by Jiří Hyška and Lukáš Košťál in Jirkov near Železný Brod.

Represented in collections of modern art in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, France, Israel, the United States, and elsewhere.

Lives in Halmstad on the west coast of Sweden.

Solo exhibitionsGalleri Gaston, Stockholm, 1975 Salem Galleri, 1982 Sveagalleriet, Stockholm, 1984BTJ Konstklubb, Lund, 1985Stadsgalleriet, Halmstad, 1986 Galleri Konstnärscentrum, Malmö, 1986Smålands Konstarkiv, Värnamo, 1986Konstnärshuset Varberg with Nils Johansson, 1988 Galleri Skulptörförbundet, Stockholm, 1988Galleri Sigma, Växjö, 1988Galleri Victoria Halmstad with Hans Fagerström, 1989Konstfrämjandet Göteborg with Nils Johansson, 1990Galleri Kram, Halmstad, 1993Skara Konsthall with T. Frisk and O. Agnell, 1993Galleri Flamingo with MÅS Persson, Falkenberg, 1994 Nääs Fabriker with Tommy CarlssonMjellby Konstgård, Halmstad, 1997Falsterbo Konsthall, 1999Galleri Terseaus, Stockholm, 2000Rättviks Konsthall with Kätie Nilsson, 2001Galleri New Form, Sparreholm, 2002Gallerihuset, Copenhagen, 2002Galleri Norre Port, Halmstad, 2003Galleri Rosenströmska Gården, Skanör, 2003Konsthallen, Varberg, 2004Galleri Harald Kjeldaas, Oslo, 2005Galleri New Form, Trelleborg, 2005Galleri Varden, Moss, 2005Galleri Clifford, Daugård, 2006Ottenby konstgård, 2006Galleri JCC, Luxembourg, 2007Galleri Harald Kjeldaas with Nette Johansson, Oslo, 2007Galleri New Form with Lars Nordin, Trelleborg, 2007Ottenby konstgård, 2008Laholms stadsgalleri, 2009Lidingö Konsthall, 2009Atelier Bastakär with Thomas Frisk, Halmstad, 2010Galleri Harald Kjeldaas with Tofteloftet, Oslo, 2010Galleri Rääf with Lucie Räff, Stockholm, 2011

Group exhibitionsSolna Salong, 1973Liljevalchs Vårsalong, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1984Grenen Museum, 1979Galleri svensk Skulptur, Stockholm, 1981XVllle Grand Prix International d’Art Contemporain de Monte Carlo, 1983Galleri Bleu, Stockholm, 1984, 1985Humlegården, Stockholm, 1985 Liljekvistska Parken, Borlänge, 1986

Åbroparken Värnamo, 1986Sculpture in nature, Norrvikens Trädgårdar Halmstad höstsalong, 1986Galleri skulptörförbundet, Stockholm, 1987Kvintessenser Museet in Halmstad, 1988Sculpture next to Nissan, Halmstad Museum, 1989Swedish Modern Art – Museum of East Bohemia Hradec Králové, Czech Republic, 1992 8 from Halland, Södertälje Konsthall, 1993Halmstads Konstnärsklubb, Karlskrona, 1996Halmstad Museum “Rum”, 1999Copenhagen Art 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002Herning Kunstmesse, Denmark, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003OSAKA TRIENNALE 10th International Contemporary Art Competition, 2001Stockholm Art Fair, 2002Amedea international sculpture exhibition, Hlinsko, Czech Republic (second public award), 2002Gallerihuset, Copenhagen, 2002, 2003St. Art, Strasbourg, 2005Galleri JCC c’est mon droit, 2006Marsvinsholms Skulpturpark, 2007Marsvinsholms Skulpturpark, 2008Marsvinsholms Skulpturpark, 2009Ölgod Skulptur, 2009Glass link Stockholm – Praha Swedish Glass of the 20th Century, Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague December 2009–February 2010Marsvinsholms Skulpturpark, 2010Marsvinsholms Skulpturpark, 2011Det Åbne Menneske, Rundetaarn Copenhagen, 2011

Public workIn more than 30 public places around Sweden, for example:National Museum, StockholmBerwaldhallen, StockholmVästerås konstmuseumHalmstad RådhusGävle RådhusNorretorg, HalmstadHotel Tylösand, HalmstadHalmstads lasarett

* Apart from Sweden Mandl’s work has also been sold to private art collectors in Norway, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Israel, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Russia, Luxembourg, and the USA.

Peter (Petr) Mandl

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Peter MandlSculptorWorks from 1996–2010

text: Paul Grøtvedt, Antonín Langhamergraphic design: Ondřej Zámišphotos: Jaroslav Kvíz (p. 2, 13, 14, 16, 19–25, 30–31, 33–38, 40–42, 44, 48, 49, 52, 53, 55, 56, 59–61, 66, 68, 72, 75, 78), Gabriel Urbánek (6–7, 22–23, 28, 32, 45, 50–51, 63–65, 67), Jaroslav Richtr (p. 74), Anders Sälström (p. 80), author’s archiveprinted by Trico, Prague

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