Markéta Nováková – Traces in Porcelain
Porcelain designer and university lecturer Markéta Nováková, based in Bratislava, presents an overview of her work and part of her new project Traces in Porcelain, inspired by the regional historical production of ceramics and porcelain from Bechyně, Beroun, České Budějovice, Teplice, Karlovy Vary, with overlaps into patterns and structures of other folk crafts.
Town Hall Gallery, City Hall of České Budějovice
nám. Přemysla Otakara II. 1/1 370 92 České Budějovice
www.c-budejovice.cz/radnicni-vystavni-sin
Opening remarks: project curator Dita Hálová
The inspiration comes from airbrushed sprayed patterns, typical of ceramics from Northern Bohemia, characterized by vivid multicolored geometric lines and stylized floral motifs. The porcelain factory in Dubí or the fine stoneware production in Trnovany near Teplice adopted these fashionable patterns in their product range. These were linked to the aesthetics of Art Deco as well as to the artistic movement and the Bauhaus school, particularly its early Weimar period (1919–1924). In 1920, when the school was led by Walter Gropius, a ceramics workshop was opened in Dornburg. It was run by Max Krehan, from a family with a pottery tradition, and sculptor and graphic artist Gerhard Marcks (1889–1981), who was responsible for the design and decoration of student works. Airbrushed motifs were created by most students of this Bauhaus department, but were further developed, for example, by Swiss ceramist Werner Burri (1898–1972). During the 1920s and 1930s, the Rosenthal porcelain factory in Selb, KMB Berlin, and, with various qualitative nuances, other porcelain and stoneware manufacturers in Germany, Northern Bohemia, and also Scandinavia, produced such decorations. Original patterns can be found under the names “German airbrushed Ceramic” (English) or “Spritzdekor” (German), which were widely used for decorating utilitarian and decorative glass, ceramics, and porcelain.