PETR HORA
Hora studied in Czech Republic at the Chlum nr. Trebon glass-making school (65-67) and then to the Applied Art College of Glass-making in Zelezny Brod (67-71) and has been a glass artist in his own studio since 1992. Over the years, he has received various prizes and honors, including the Applied Arts Quadriennial, Erfurt (Germany), 1983 Bavarian State Award and gold medal, Munich (Germany), Michigan Glass Month Award of Excellence, the Muskegon Institute of Art – Award of Excellence and the Bavarian State Award and gold medal, Munich (Germany). Collections include, Bohemian Art Glass Museum, Karuizawa, (Japan); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (USA); Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk (USA); Corning Museum of Glass, Corning (USA); and the Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile (USA)
Story of Petr Hora and his journey to glass... Excerpt from essay written by Ivo Burian
“The first time, Petr Hora came in to contact with glass, was in the glass school Chlum by Třeboň. Here, as a 16-year-old boy, he learned to deal with a glass-blower´s pipe, he came to know properties of molten glass and technical and technological basis of the craft. Petr enjoyed and liked working with glass and he was interested in it, so after two years of his apprenticeship he came to the High School of Applied Arts for Glassmaking in Železný Brod. The teachers led the students from their first drawings, colored solutions and reliefs to their own designs and their implementation into glass material. The school owned a glass-factory which was managed by the glass artist and sculptor Pavel Ježek at that time. I was a teacher of Art, Design and Art History, so Petr became mine and Ježek´s student. After four-years of studying in the school of glassmaking and following the advice of Pavel Ježek, Petr started working in the glass factory in Škrdlovice, which was then the exceptional glass factory with handmade glass. Many Czech leading glass artists and glassmakers took part in creation of a profile of the glass factory in Škrdlovice. They tried to improve and discover new techniques.
The crucial importance for Petr´s work and life are presented by the meeting with František Vízner, who, in those days, worked as a glass designer in the glass factory in Škrdlovice. Although, during his twenty-year work for the glass factory in Škrdlovice, Petr created almost one hundred designs of heat treated free-blown glass in different shapes and colors, and somewhere in the middle of this period he began to be interested in another issue which is glass cutting. These are completely different procedures used for shaping cold glass. At that time his first cutting shapes were formed. These shapes were gradually losing their utility function and became independent aesthetic objects. In the early 1990’s, Petr built his own studio, which was very provisional at first, and he devoted completely to creation of cutting glass objects which appeared soon at exhibitions of the Czech glass art at home and abroad too.
Petr´s colored glass objects which are perfectly worked in a craftsman manner, are based on basic geometric shapes. They are clean in the form and material and a final effect is intensified by changing shiny and matt surfaces. When looking for new possibilities of artistic expression he uses possibilities brought by molten sculpture. This technology enables him to achieve much bigger dimensions. An illustration of it is circular, semi-circular and ring shapes. With some objects Petr experiments with setting off the matter inner structure.
Petr changes diversity of objects´ colors by weakening molten glass. Thick layers are dark; the color is almost fading in thin layers. This optical effect makes him to grind the matter through and create a hole which is a part of the composition. This colorful and space dynamics is apparent in glass objects originating over the last period. Just for one of these he was awarded at the exhibition in Munich – by the Bavarian State Prize.
In the end I am not afraid to say that Petr Hora loves the glass from the bottom of his heart. He is diligent and relentless when working with glass; he has a great deal of art sense for material and its artistic form and impressiveness. The glass rewards him with permanent surprises revealing new and new secrets.”