René Roubíček

René Roubíček (1922–2018) was one of the most distinctive figures of 20th-century Czech glass – a glass artist who transformed glass into a material of free, spontaneous gesture. From drawing and music, through his studies at Prague's UMPRUM, he came to hot-shaped glass, with which he worked much like a jazz improviser: in dialogue with the glowing mass and the master glassmakers. He became famous above all for monumental sculptures and light objects for prestigious exhibitions, for example an abstract sculpture for Expo 1958 in Brussels or the legendary “Columns” shown in 1967 in Montreal. He collaborated for many years with the glassworks in Nový Bor and Kamenický Šenov as well as with companies such as Moser, Preciosa and Lasvit, and significantly influenced several generations of glassmakers.

Together with his wife, the glass artist Miluše Roubíčková, he formed a respected couple who were present at all the key chapters of post-war Czech glass and regularly took part in world exhibitions. While Miluše developed her poetic world of flowers, objects and playful still lifes, Roubíček returned to dynamic sculptures, cycles of heads and figures, and to the late female busts – “Beautiful Ladies” and “Afterky”, full of humour and detachment. Their joint work, scattered across Czech and foreign collections, embodies to this day the “joy of life” and the courage to push glass beyond decoration to a fully-fledged sculptural medium.