Petr Fidrich

Academic sculptor and painter, born on 21 August 1964 in Karviná, nicknamed “Fíďa”. He grew up in his parents’ studio. After primary school he studied stone sculpture at the Secondary School of Art in Uherské Hradiště (finishing in 1983), then spent two years working with his father, the academic sculptor Oldřich Fidrich, on sculptures in stone (granite, marble, sandstone). After military service he spent a year restoring stone elements on the Týn Church in Prague. In 1987 he began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague — until 1989 under Professor Stanislav Hanzlík, and after the revolution until 1991 under Professor Karel Malich. From 1988 to 1992 he was an active member of the Svárov art group (with the sculptors Jan Vágner and Michal Bouzek and the painters Milan Perić, Šárka Trčková and Vladimír Kavka).

He worked in Prague until 1993, then moved to South Bohemia, to Český Krumlov (“The Fairy-tale House”); since 2011 he has worked in his own studio in Boršov nad Vltavou near České Budějovice. For the past fifteen years he has been making what he calls sculptural collages from a range of materials — stone, ceramics, concrete, glass, wood, metal, plastics, paint. His basic subject is the human being (the human being and the universe, and faith, and the elements, good and evil, life and death).

Alongside his free work he also makes practical objects — tables, chairs, chess tables, benches and fountains.

Works: Český Krumlov — a bell tower for the Centre for Help to Children and Young People; the theatre in Český Krumlov — the suspended sculpture “The Path to Light”; České Budějovice — three objects, Music, Signal and Ferryman, at the Piano Business Centre; Boršov nad Vltavou — St Leopold, St Peter and Paul and the memorial to American airmen “Boy with a Butterfly”.

Exhibitions and symposia (selection): Art in the City, České Budějovice (2015, 2018), the Vize 16 symposium — Prague-Modřany (2016), the symposium at the Beroun rehabilitation hospital — Charon (2017), A Walk through Time — Chaberský dvůr Gallery, Prague (2018), Temelín — Installation in the Core (2019), the Řehlovice cultural centre (2020, 2022), Velké Popovice (2021), Svatoš Gallery, Kostelec nad Černými lesy (2023); earlier the Senate of the Czech Parliament (2004), the municipal gallery in Steyr, Austria (2012), the Aleš South Bohemian Gallery in Bechyně / the Wortner House in České Budějovice, the Vincenc Kramář Gallery in Prague (1998) and others. Part of his work is held in private collections and galleries (for example the Würth Gallery).