Václav Fiala

Václav Fiala was born on 11 January 1955 in Klatovy. From 1973 to 1976 he studied at the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Prague. After school he worked as a graphic designer at the Mladá fronta publishing house and devoted himself to painting, drawing and printmaking; between 1976 and 1992 he held a number of solo exhibitions of paintings, drawings and prints. In 1985 he travelled to India and Nepal, about which he wrote the book “Just Like That in India” (1994). The turning point came in 1992, when he was invited to the Winged Arrow symposium of metal sculpture in Plzeň — since then he has been making sculpture. In 1994 he exhibited iron sculptures at the Nová síň gallery in Prague and wooden sculptures at the National Technical Museum, and in 1997 he exhibited in the Old Royal Palace at Prague Castle. He uses precisely worked fine materials (wood, stone, iron) and responds sensitively to the particular setting his objects are made for; he looks for his subjects and his formal language deep in the historical memory of humankind and in references to cultural traditions.

His first work in public space was the 1996 memorial to the victims of the First and Second World Wars in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm; it was followed by, among others, the “Stone Mirror” memorial in Klatovy (1999), a work in Carrara marble for the university clinic in Graz (2000) and the “Tower for Jan Palach” in Klatovy (2021). He has completed artist residencies in North Carolina and New Hampshire (USA).

Awards: grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York (1997, 2004), a residency at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte (2002), the main sculpture prizes at Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney (2004 and 2005), the Sankt-Anna-Preis (Austria, 2011) for his contribution to culture. He is a member of the Mánes Association of Fine Artists and lives and works in Klatovy.

Publications: Just Like That in India (1994), A Monument for Rožnov (1997), What Goods Bring Us… (2009), Sculptures for a Baroque Niche (2012), Forest Church (2020).