LITHYALIN REVIVE!
The Museum of Applied Arts in Prague and AFAD Bratislava invite you to the Prague exhibition opening - LITHYANIN REVIVE!
Where?
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The Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague
- 17. listopadu Street No.2
110 00 Prague 1, Czech Republic
- 17. listopadu Street No.2
When?
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Opening: Wednesday 20/09/2023 from 6 p.m.
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Exhibition duration: 21/09/2023 - 19/11/2023
- Open:
TUE 10 – 20
WED - SUN 10 – 18
- Open:
Exhibiting authors:
- Žofia Dubová / Zuzana Gállyová / Lucia Kupcová / Dávid Kurinec / Kristína Ligačová / Palo Macho / Katarína Pozorová / Pavla Pšenicová / Jakub Sojka / Anna Zbořilová
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Exhibition concept: Palo Macho
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Curators: Sylva Petrová, Palo Macho
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Spatial and graphic design: Marcel Benčík
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Photo: Jana Hojstričová, Gabriel Urbanek
More info at the Museum website

The project has been supported by the Arts Council and is part of the Images Captured on Glass KEGA project 004VŠVU-4/2022.
Revive Lithyalin!
Under my leadership and the expert guidance of Václav Kuželka, in 2022 two interdisciplinary workshops of students and graduates were held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava in collaboration with the companies Glassbor CZ Ltd., the Jílek glassworks in Kamenický Šenov and the Higher Vocational Glassmaking School in Nový Bor. Both workshops were focused on the metallurgical and refining technologies of lithyalin glass with the application of silver and copper glaze. Using the historical glass technologies, the authors experimented with a combination of traditional and author’s approach and sought a new aesthetic in addition to new meanings in the context of contemporary visual art and art design. In the final author’s interventions in blown shapes, drawing, painterly gesture, and sculptural intervention was accentuated by sandblasting, grinding and glass cutting.
Different colours of the surface and the painted layers were achieved by the height of the firing temperature and different oxidising or reducing the firing atmosphere. The combination of temperatures, firing atmospheres and glass refining techniques resulted in various types of objects. Some have the appearance of products, because they meet the requirements of serial production, whereas others can be considered art design, or even an author’s work of art, which is unique and enhances the exceptional quality of creative drawing and painting.
Although they are imaginary categories, and in some objects they merge or overlap, all objects, including experiments, display the quality of craftsmanship and technology as a natural outcome. Technology and craftsmanship are important benefits of the artist’s creative approach and his/her intellectual concept that creates the artistic value of the work of art.
Palo Macho
Text about history of the Lithyalin technique by Sylva Petrova
At the beginning of the 19th century, North Bohemian glassworks began to look for a way to revive the declining market and found it in the production of coloured glass imitating semi-precious stones: hyalite, agate and lithyalin. Lithyalin is usually associated with opaque fused glass, hence its name from the Greek lithos – stone, but translucent versions are also known. It was produced by the Nový Bor glass specialist and entrepreneur Friedrich (Bedřich) Egermann (1777 – 1864). In 1828, he had this new discovery patented and successfully produced lithyalin glass in various shapes and colours, decorated by cutting, grinding, engraving, glaze and gilding. This lasted almost until the middle of the 19th century, and then interest in these products waned. After Egermann’s death, lithyalin was no longer produced. Interest in it increased only after the Second World War, when it became a collectible. It was impossible to restore the production of lithyalin for a long time, even though the original recipes were known, because the melting of molten glass in the old way could not be repeated as it was economically unsustainable due to the length of melting. The path to lithyalin was only found by the technologist Václav Kuželka who came up with a method of imitating the historical predecessors of this glass technology in new conditions, and thus further expanding the possibilities of lithyalin. Glass artists in Slovakia are now responding to the creative challenge of working with lithyalin in a new way.
Sylva Petrová