Arnold Bartůněk – Bartůněk Arnold (2023)

The first comprehensive publication about Czech sculptor and restorer Arnold Bartůňek (1955) presents his formal and artistic development from the 1980s to the present, from smaller works of a chamber character created in the studio to larger realizations in public spaces. Among the latter is a marble statue named Slavěna, created in honor of the centenary of the founding of Czechoslovakia, which was unveiled in Litomyšl in 2018. An overview of his lifelong work is complemented by reproductions of figurative drawings from the last decade. Selected concise texts reflecting the author's thoughts and attitudes clarify the formal and ideological foundations of his work. ***** The entirety of Bartůňek's work is primarily filled with one central inexhaustible motif – namely, the female figure as an eternally inspiring phenomenon. The sculptor has never deviated from his main intention: to strive for the dominance of beauty, which results from the harmony of noble material, inspiring motif, stability of the sculpture, and fulfillment of artistic solutions and goals. The documented work is an attempt to return to the natural world with its order and tradition and to oppose the prevailing contemporary academic conceptual tendencies.