Civilization
clear glass, blown with embedded parts, signed and dated 1986 P. Hlava Czechoslovakia, 35 x 75 x 22 cm (Zí)

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 AAAD 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. His famous serial designs include 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 with high quality cut enamel. 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. 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, he created clearly defined abstract objects inspired by nature.
The work entitled Civilization was made in the mid-1980s, when the author experimented with combining two of his most commonly used techniques – blown glass with punctures and colored glued glass. The author completed a series of small sculptures in this style. He later devoted himself solely to cut and glued sculptures.