Karel Nepraš

Karel Nepraš (2 April 1932 – 5 April 2002) was a Czech sculptor, draughtsman, graphic artist and professor at Prague Academy. Already in the 1960s, Nepraš became one of the most prominent Czech artists thanks to his ability to master new materials, techniques and technologies and creatively exploit them. His original work has also been recognized abroad. Through playfulness, subversive irony and bitter humour, he has kept himself free from pathos, pretension and any ideological cliché. Nepraš's work is often classified as part of the so-called ''Czech Grotesque'', which partly overlapped with New Figuration, but the term was rather a substitute for such notions as alienation, absurdity and manipulation, which were unacceptable to the then communist regime. With the rapid deterioration of state cultural policy under normalization, the grotesque acted as a distinctly intellectual commentary on reality. According to art historian Jan Kříž, there are only a few sculptors in the world who could so perfectly connect the tragicomedy of human existence with the tragicomedy of general history.

The period of normalization he experienced in difficult existential conditions, without the possibility to exhibit and in seclusion. He received recognition again only after the fall of the communist regime, when he was appointed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. A number of prominent personalities emerged from the ''Karel Nepraš School Socha 1'', such as the sculptors Paulina Skavova, Martina Hozová, Klára Klose and Markéta Korečková, the sculptors Karel Bartáček, Zdeněk Šmíd, Vít Novotný, Ján Macko and the painter MICL. In addition to teaching students, Nepraš devoted himself intensively to his own work and is considered one of the most original representatives of New Figuration. Provided by Wikipedia