Modernista Cubist Collection

What is Czech Cubism?
Sharp points, slicing planes, crystalline shapes. These are the trademarks of Czech Cubism - a unique movement born around 1910 Prague when a group of young avant-garde designers transferred the cubist principles of the paintings of Braque and Picasso to architecture, furniture and decorative objects.

The Czech Cubists believed that an object's true internal energy could only be released by breaking up the vertical and horizontal surfaces that restrain and repress it in conventional design. By incorporating angled planes into the design of everyday objects, they tried to give them a dynamism that turned them into works of art in their own right. Bohemia's culturally adventurous elite was open to these radical ideas and happily financed the your designers' cubist transformation of everything from cups and saucers, desks and chairs to villas and office buildings.

Having enjoyed great attention in the first decades of the century, the scintillating works of the Czech Cubists were then hidden from much of the world from 1948 until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Now they are in the spotlight again. Recognized as a significant stage in the development of the Art Deco style, Czech Cubist originals are to be found no display not only in Prague's Museum of Decorative Arts, but also in institutions as far a field as London's Victoria and Albert Museum and New York's Metropolitan.

Pavel Janak (1882-1956) designed a collection of 30 vases in 1911 that was well ahead of his time. Reproduced by Modernista by Yannick Terray. Made in Czech Republic. Selected pieces available in limited quantities.

(Click photos to enlarge)

13 13" h. convex all white

MO-202

5 1/3”h, convex white with thin black line

MO-206

9 2/3” h, convex white with thin black line

MO-207

13 1/3” h, convex white with thin black line

MO-208

9 2/3” h, concave white with thin black line

MO-210

13 1/3” h, concave white with thin black line

MO-211

5 1/3” h, concave white with thin black line

MO-209

5 1/3” h, convex black, with white stripe

MO-212
 

12 2/3” h, convex black, with white stripe

MO-214

5 1/3”h, concave black, with white stripe

MO-215
 

13 1/3”h, concave black, with white stripe

MO-217

9 2/3”h, convex white with thin gold line

MO-219

5 1/3”h concave white with thin gold line

MO-221
 

13 1/3” h concave white with gold stripe

MO-223
 

13 1/3”h concave gold with white stripe

 MO-229

Hofman decanter with 4 shot glasses

MO-560