Zbynek Sekal

Zbynek Sekal was born in Prague, Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) in 1923. From 1945 to 1950 he attended the College of Applied Arts, in Prague under František Tichý, František Muzika and Emil Filla. He refused to take the state examination. In 1947 he traveled several times to Paris for the International Exhibition of Surrealism at the Maeght Gallery. In 1968, after the invasion of Prague by Warsaw Pact troops, he emigrated via Berlin and Düsseldorf to Vienna, where he lived from 1970. From 1972 to 1974 Sekal taught at the State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart. From 1974 to the early 1980s, the artist was a member of the Vienna Secession. In 1984 Sekal received the City of Vienna Prize for Sculpture. In 1997 the Gallery of the City of Prague dedicated a first retrospective to him. Zbynek Sekal died in Vienna in 1998. Since 2014, a reconstruction of his Vienna studio has been on permanent display at the National Gallery in Prague, along with his sculptures. In 2021, the Austrian Belvedere Gallery dedicated a major retrospective to him.