Jenny Hladíková (née Hršelová; 9 June 1930 – 25 July 2022) was a Czech printmaker, painter and maker of tapestries.
Life Jenny Hršelová was born on 9 June 1930 in Kolín.Hlaváčková K., 1995, p. 267 In 1941–1948, she attended the Real Gymnasium in Kolín (professor of drawing Bohuslav Kutil). After moving to Prague, she graduated from the Jan Masaryk Real Gymnasium in Prague in 1949.
In 1949–1954, she studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the studio of monumental painting and textiles of Alois Fišárek. In 1955, she married her classmate, the artist Jan Hladík.
In the late 1950s, the Hladík couple acquired a printing press and Jenny Hladíková began to create her own graphic matrices, which Jan Hladík then printed. The couple built a joint studio in Prague-Podolí,Jenny Hladíková, 2004 where Jan Hladík constructed originally designed vertical looms for weaving tapestries. Jenny was first an expert advisor and later a collaborator on the large-scale work Blue Garden (190 × 430 cm, Parkhotel (Mama Shelter) Prague).
Jenny Hladíková exhibited her first tapestry in 1966 at a show of Czechoslovak tapestry in Prague Castle Riding Hall on the occasion of a meeting of the AICA International Congress of Critics, and one of her other tapestries was selected the following year for the 3rd International Biennale of Tapestry in Lausanne, where she exhibited again in 1969. Her first solo exhibition was in 1969 at Gallery on Charles Square, which was run by Ludmila Vachtová. The importance of Czechoslovak authors' textile artworks ought to be reflected in the forthcoming International Colloquium on Contemporary Tapestry, with the promised participation of about 50 artists and theoreticians from 11 countries, scheduled to take place in Prague in August 1968. However, due to the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops, it was no longer possible.Rudovská M., Communication of Textile Matter. Revue Umění a Řemesla, Prague, No. 3, 2009, pp. 13–18
Since 1993, she has been a member of the art department of the Umělecká beseda. In 1999 she had a large retrospective exhibition of tapestries and prints in the Gallery of the Mánes Union of Fine Arts.
Jenny Hladíková lived and worked in Prague, where she also died on 25 July 2022.
Awards In 1977, Jenny Hladíková received the Prix de Mecénes for her tapestry Gesture of Green at the international exhibition La Vigne, le Vin, le Sacré in Vevey. In 1979, she became a founding member of the Association Pierre Pauli in Lausanne.
Work Graphic art and painting In the early 1960s, Jenny Hladíková dedicated herself to multi-coloured linocut (Park, 1963) and created a series of colour monotypes. She composed the print matrices from cut and dyed pieces of waxed paper and fabric assembled as abstract compositions on a ground covered with a base colour. She accomplishes the artistic effect by combining and layering irregular shapes and muted colour tones with the occasional bold colour accent. The individual sheets are not named and the interpretation of the work is left to the viewer (Untitled, 1963–65). The monotypes were the basis for the first tapestries (Four Stories, 1967). In parallel, she created numerous studies of structures in the form of drypoint or etching.
In the second half of the 1960s, a series of black and white abstract structural prints were made from scraps of fabric, paper and scraps of cotton cordonnet. The arrangement of the individual components sometimes produces a linear drawing (Cords, 1966), but usually follows no predetermined order and works with an element of chance. The direction of the lines in soft curves and their local thickening gives the impression of movement (Growth, 1967, Flow, 1968), while at other times the artist uses the rough structure of the fabric as an irregular grid, representing living tissue (Meeting of Tissues, 1967, Two Tissues, 1972). In the titles of other abstract compositions she refers to natural phenomena (Dark Passage, 1966, Horizontal Layer, 1980) and living organisms (Vegetation, 1968, Vegetative Gesture, 1975), only rarely naming a concrete symbol (Cross, 1966, Big T, 1968, Angels, 1970). Individual small-format prints created in this way became the basis for tapestries (Tissue, structural print, 1967, tapestry, 1968).
In addition to printmaking, after 2000 the artist has also worked in watercolour and in the combination of watercolour and drawing. The subject of these works are natural structures and abstract landscapes.
Tapestry Jenny Hladíková is the author of dozens of large-scale tapestries based on her own themes, at first abstract, later tapestries inspired by details of landscapes and natural processes, transformations of light and colour. She is one of the leading protagonists of author's woven tapestries, which first appeared in exhibitions alongside traditional workshop tapestries in the 1960s and marked a revolution in the concept of this line of textile art.Šteiglová T, 2015, p. 22, p. 25
She wove her first tapestries during her studies, but then consistently devoted herself to printmaking, returning to them again only in 1965, when she assisted Jan Hladík in the creation of the monumental tapestry Blue Garden (1965), woven using the technique of weft-faille.Šteiglová T, 2015, p. 28
In 1966–68, she wove five of her own original tapestries, the fourth of which was selected for the prestigious Biennale internationale de la tapiserie in Lausanne in 1967. Already in the 1960s, Jenny Hladíková was one of the most progressive artists who, while not abandoning the traditional rectangular format, used it with distinctive inventiveness. Her works are parables about time, change and growth, expressing the dynamics of movement and growing out of the artist's own process of textile work. The calm surface of the "background", woven with a classical binding, makes contrast to the restless texture. The tapestry Flow (1970) belongs to works of this type.Šteiglová T, 2015, p. 49
In the 1960s, Jenny Hladíková converted some of her monotypes and structural prints into tapestries. In a few, she uses compositions of folded flat shapes with irregular outlines, weaving in different coloured yarn to suggest plasticity, disrupting the linear outline (Four Stories, 1967) or accentuating a particular element (Tissue, 1968). The structural system plays a dominant role in the composition, where the dense ropes of structures created by the wrapping technique create an embossed surface on the surface of the tapestry. Structure also had a strong emotional meaning for her, as well as a luminous value.Šteiglová T, 2015, p. 29
Some tapestries designed by the Hladík couple were woven by the workshops of the Umělecká řemesla Praha, in which case the signature JJ Hladík is woven in the lower right and the emblem of the Umělecká řemesla in a lime leaf in the lower left.tapestry in the Parkhotel Praha - in the corridor of the restaurant on the first floor
Since 1968, she has created a new weaving technique with wool yarn of varying strength, leaving loose fibres in the weft, which she then drapes over the woven warp on the face. This allows her to create a much more dynamic relief composition and suits her intention to capture movement. Jenny Hladíková's distinctive dynamic tapestry Flow (1970) anticipated her other works reflecting her inspiration from nature and its phenomena, such as Tissue Encounter (1972) or the colourful and structurally expressive Place of Encounter (1978).
No longer adhering to a graphic template, the artist freely depicts the drama of natural processes in monumental compositions (Gesture of Green, 270 × 160 cm, 1976; Memory of Heather, 109 × 200 cm, 1977). By this time, she had already achieved a sovereignty in her weaving technique that allowed her to capture optical phenomena such as the reflection of rock formations on the surface of water (Quarry, 172 × 290 cm, 1977). A series of tapestries loosely inspired by movement, the elements and natural phenomena concludes with Baroque Principle (300 × 180 cm, 1980, UPM).
Since the late 1970s, Jenny Hladíková has returned to the classical method of weaving and has made greater use of concrete landscapes as a model (Tree, 1978). She concentrates on capturing mood, the play of light and shadow, and spatial depth. The surface and ripples of the water are a frequent subject (Opatovice Pond, 1981, Leafing, 1992). In her treatment, a seemingly simple subject such as a staircase offers a subtle shift of perspective in the rectangular frame of the warp, along with a perfect impressionistic illusion of vivid patches of light and shadow (Stairs, 1984). If the subject is a play of light and impression, she moves freely to abstraction (Night-traces of Light, 1987), or to dramatic depictions of perspective (On the Way from Křivoklát, 1996) and spatial depths, capturing the grandeur of natural scenery (Spring Mountains, 1998).
For her realizations in architecture she has collaborated with architects, for example with the author of the modern theatre in Most, Ivo Klimeš.The World of Architecture and Theatre: Architect Ivo Klimeš, editors Popelová Lenka, Špačková Eva. Grada Praha 2014, p. 284 Jenny Hladíková did not refrain from the techniques of non-woven tapestry, originating from Nonwoven fabric (Art protis).
Representation in collections (tapestries) Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague Moravian Gallery in Brno North Bohemian Museum in Liberec Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava Central Museum of Woolen Arts, Łódź
Private collections Anne and Jacques Baruch Gallery, Chicago, United States Collection des Tapisseries Contemporaines de l'Association Pierre Pauli, Vaud, Switzerland Raiffeisenhof, Graz, Austria Private collections Italy, Switzerland, England, Prague
Realisation in public space Czechoslovak Airlines, Helsinki Czechoslovak Radio Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague North Bohemian Communications Directorate, Ústí nad Labem Municipal Theatre, Most: Structure of the landscape Forum Hotel, Prague Parkhotel (now Mama Shelter Hotel), Prague Komerční banka, Liberec Unicoop, Prague
Exhibitions Author's 1969 Gallery on Charles Square, Prague 1973 Jindřichův Hradec (castle) (with Jan Hladík), catalogue 1980 North Bohemian Gallery of Fine Arts in Litoměřice 1990 Chateau Roztoky u Prahy (with M. Blabolilova and D. Vinopalová) 1990 Atrium, Prague (with Jan Hladík) 1994 Galerie Bonaventura, Prague 1994 Staré Hrady Castle 1997 Convent of the Monastery in Žďár nad Sázavou (with Jan Hladík) 1999 Tapestries - Monotypes - Graphics (retrospective), Mánes, Prague (curator Kybalová L.) 2001 Tapestries, House of Art in Opava (with Jan Hladík, curator Kybalová L.) 2001 Tapestry - graphics, Galerie Klenová in Klatovy (with Jan Hladík, curator. Fišer M.) 2005 Small Hall of the Trade Fair Palace, National Gallery in Prague, (with Jan Hladík, curator Horneková J.) 2005 Tapestry - Journey - Speech (tapestries, drawings, watercolours), Ostrov (curator Čepeláková T.)
Collective (selection) 1966 Československá tapiserie 1956–66 / Czechoslovak Tapestry 1956-66, Prague Castle Riding Hall 1967 Biennale internationale de la tapiserie, Lausanne 1968 Mezinárodní výstava soudobé tapiserie / International exhibition of contemporary tapestry, Prague 1969/70 Exposición internacional de experriencias artistico-textiles, Museo Espaňol de Arte Contemporáneo, Madrid + Tinell, Barcelona 1971/72 La Tapisserie tchécoslovaque contemporaine, Amiens, Rennes, Macon, Angers, Mulhouse 1972 Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins, Paris 1971/72 Československá tapiserie 1966–71 / Czechoslovak Tapestry 1966-71, Queen Anne's Summer Palace Prague, Bratislava Castle 1973 Československé užité umění / Czechoslovak applied art, Bruges 1975 Tapiserie v architektuře / Tapestry in architecture, Dům umění města Brna (House of Arts, Brno)