The Hernych villa will be adorned with a statue of Quido Kocián

Ústí nad Orlicí - The work of Ústí nad Orlicí native sculptor Quido Kocián will adorn the garden of the recently reconstructed and reopened Art Nouveau Hernych Villa. It will be a bronze sculpture titled Dead Abel, and the city plans its ceremonial unveiling for September 17, said Mayor Richard Pešek to ČTK.
    "I have had a desire for years for this sculpture to be in Ústí. It is Kocián's absolutely most beautiful sculpture," Pešek stated.
    The Art Nouveau sculpture from 1901 depicts a dead boy lying with his hands on his chest. The despair of death is amplified by sheep that surround him closely. The only bronze cast in the Czech Republic currently stands in front of the secondary sculptural-stonemasonry school in Hořice. Ústí has obtained a plaster cast, according to which another original of the sculpture is being poured. The city will pay 700,000 crowns for it, Pešek noted.
    Kocián, who was born in Ústí nad Orlicí in 1874 to a stonemason family, was a student of Josef Václav Myslbek. He studied at the Hořice sculptural-stonemasonry school, where he also taught until his death in 1928 as a professor. Kocián is among the leading artists of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. He exclusively depicted tragic themes.