In extent and significance terms, the glass collection in the Moravian Gallery Brno is among the most substantial ones of that sort in the Czech Republic. It started in 1873 in the connection of the Moravian Museum of Applied Arts foundation. Over the course of its existence, it has acquired nearly five thousand items documenting the development of the Central European, but primarily the Czech glass manufacture dating from the Middle Ages to nowadays.
The most extensive collections are those consisting of the Baroque cut or engraved glass items, varied nineteenth-century production, or design creation by Czech glass artists coming from the second half of the 20th century. The finest display of the Gothic arts & crafts in the Moravian Gallery is a collection of stained glass windows with provincial emblems coming from the 1430s. The collection of the Baroque glass items was added to by a large donation given by a composer, Ladislav Vycpálek. The multi-scale nineteenth-century production is illustrated by exhibits of the leading period manufacturers: Harrachovské sklárny (Harrach Glassworks), or companies J. & L. Lobmeyr, Salviati, Ehrenfeld, J. Schreiber & Neffen, S. Reich & Co., F. Heckert. What deserves attention, among others, is also works by Dominik Biemann, one of the most distinguished glass intaglio portrait artists living in the second quarter of the 19th century. The Czech glass manufacture during the Art Nouveau period continued a rich recent-year tradition. Around the year 1900, the Czech Lands, France and the United States became the centre of both European and world glass manufacture thanks to wide experience, glassworkers’ artistic skills, and business foresight. In the Moravian Gallery’s collection is this period represented by products made in northern-Bohemian glass schools or companies, the works by Hella Unger, Josef Hoffmann, Otto Prutscher, Leopold Bauer, Marie Wilfert-Walt, Adolf Beckert or more.
The collection also spans the second-half-of-twentieth-century glass art, here illustrated by the leading Czech glass artists’ creation. Works by Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová, whose names relate to fused glass sculptural art, are surely among the most distinguished ones. Their works are represented by objects such as Head (1987-1989), Heart (1967-1970), or Arcus I (1991). Hot-shaped objects (Clarinet for Mozart, Head; 1980) document the unique work by René Roubíček, whereas cut glass items by Václav Cigler give lighting optical effects (Space III, 1986). Works by Bohumil Eliáš (Space III, 1986), Jaroslav Matouš (Park, 1995), or Dana Zámečníková (Dog, 1994) display non-traditional paintings on glass. The collection of modern glass art also covers no less important works by an array of artists like Blanka Adensamová, Marie Glückhaufová, Jaromír Rybák, Jiřina Žertová, Petr Vlček, Kapka Toušková, Jiří Šuhájek, Dalibor Tichý, Jan Exnar, Ivo Rozsypal, Oldřich Lípa, Zdeněk Lhotský, and more.
The Moravian Gallery has played an important role in presentation, confrontation and finding a new expression for the contemporary engraved glass. The first display in 1965 was continued by regular Cut and Engraved Glass Triennial Exhibitions (until 1994), lying the foundation of a unique collection of the most distinguished works of this technique in our country. In addition to portraits by Jiří Harcuba (F. B. Smetana, 1974) the Gallery also boasts works by Martin Rosol, František Janák, Jitka Forejtová, Pavel Trnka, Václav Cigler, Jaromír Rybák, Ján Zoričák, to give an example.
Besides the studio glass items, the collection also contains industrial design, including sets of drinking glassware or decorative glass by Jaroslav Taraba, Vratislav Šotola, Pavel Hlava, Jiří Jetmar, Adolf Matura, Jiří Brabec, František Vízner, Rudolf Jurnikl, Jan Gabrhel, Vladimír Jelínek, Jiří Šuhájek, and many more. Many of them have been awarded the Czech Republic Ministry of Industry Best Product Prize, or nominated for the Czechoslovak Industrial Design, or other. Just to name some earlier works, these include the set Vicenza by Pecl, awarded the 2006 National Design Prize; the collection Mr. Egg by a design studio called Olgoj Chorchoj; the vase Montana by René Roubíček, designed for Moser glass company in 2007; or part of a drinking set called Bohemia Machine (2010) by František Vízner, and many more.