Otto Gutfreund

Otto Gutfreund ( born August 3, 1889 in Dvůr Králové, † June 2, 1927 in Prague) was a Czech sculptor and painter. He is one of the most important representatives of Czech Cubism.

Life

Gutfreund was born into a Jewish family in the north of Bohemia. He studied 1903-1906 under the direction of Josef Drahonovsky at the School of Ceramics in Bechyne. He then went to Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere in Antoine Bourdelle. There he had his first contacts with Cubism. After graduating, he returned to Prague in 1910 back. Here he was in 1911 co-founded the artist group Skupina. He has published in journals and cultivated good relations with Emil Filla. He was among the Czech artists, Vincenç Beneš, Filla, Pavel Janak and Antonín Prochazka, who exhibited in 1913 at the First German Autumn Salon in Berlin.

In response to the outbreak of war he - back joined the Czechoslovak Legion in France voluntarily. In 1920 he returned again to Prague, where he joined the art club Manes. In 1926 he was appointed Professor of architectural sculpture at the School of Applied Arts in Prague.

Gutfreund was drowned on June 2, 1927 in the Vltava river in Prague.

Work

After his formative Cubist period (1911-1919) Gutfreund took on various government contracts, in which he praised the citizens of the Czechoslovak Republic. From 1927 he devoted himself, however, again of modern art, in which he further dealt with the abstract sculpture.