Pokorný, Karel

Born Jan. 18, 1891, in Pavlice, near Znojmo; died Feb. 14, 1962, in Prague. Czech sculptor. People’s Artist of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1956).

Pokorný studied in Prague at the School of Industrial Arts from 1911 to 1914 and at the Academy of Arts with J. V. Mysl-bek from 1914 to 1917. Continuing in the realistic tradition of 19th-century Bohemian art, he expressed socialist ideas in his work even before World War II. His works in bronze include the monuments to lost miners in Lazy (1925) and Osek (1936–38), reliefs for the National Monument in Prague (1936–38), the monument Fraternization in the city of Česká Třebová (completed in 1950), and monuments to A. Jirásek (1952) and B. Nĕmcová (unveiled in 1954) in Prague.

In 1958, Pokorný was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR. He was awarded the State Prize of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1949, 1952, and 1955, as well as the Order of the Republic in 1961.