Takeoff
clear and colored glass, gold leafs, pasted and polished, sign. and dat. P. Hlava Czechoslovakia 2002, 35 x 78 x 8 cm

The work comes from the author’s estate.

After studying at the Glassmaking Secondary School in Železný Brod, he continued his studies at prof. Štipl’s studio at the VŠUP in Prague. From the 1960s he worked as a glassmaker in ÚBOK (Institute of Home and Fashion Culture). Pavel Hlava was among the glassmakers who succeeded as designers of serially produced glass as well as maintaining their own studio work. Among his famous serial designs are prismatic, underlying color and cut vases with fused silver or showy vases for one flower made with the sommerso technique. They had an optically shaped hollow for a flower and high quality cut glass. In 1956, Pavel Hlava began to work with blown glass. His well-known blown objects with punctures were made in the Včelnička Glassworks. The author here used the soft, colored shades that garnet glass gains depending on the temperature used. The vases on offer are a classic example of this artistic style. He began to develop a new side of his artistic expression in the second half of the 1980s. He designed complex objects, pasted from parts of variously colored glass that he then cut and polished. Thus, clearly defined abstract objects inspired by nature are created.

The object on offer, Takeoff, is one of the author’s last and also largest works made with this technique. The interplay of colors and reflections in this work is made by using gold leafs, which he placed on the pasted surfaces. Thus a work was created that combines fragility and lucidity with a monumental geometric shape, influenced by nature.