At the age of 72, sculptor and restorer Zdeněk Preclík has died

Prague - At the age of 72, sculptor and restorer Zdeněk Preclík passed away on Sunday. His friend, publisher Martin Souček, informed CTK about it today. Preclík was one of the three chairmen of the Union of Czech Visual Artists in November 1989, worked on designs for the reconstruction of the Lucerna Palace on Prague's Wenceslas Square, and realizations for the Beránek hotel in Náchod. He was the author of several commemorative plaques in Prague. According to Souček, he died as a result of a coronavirus infection.

Preclík was not easily categorizable, nor a supporter of any fashionable style, Souček stated. "However, he was not eclectic; he told his stories, anchored his symbols, and did not translate himself," he wrote. According to Souček, Preclík belonged to the best sculptors of his time. "He was one of the last bearers of the craft in the true sense of the word and lived imagination, which had no bottom in its depth," he added.

Preclík was born on January 20, 1949, in Prague’s Žižkov. In the 1960s, he graduated from the Secondary School of Applied Arts in Prague and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under professors Karel Lidický and Miloš Axman. His diploma work, a life-sized figure of the communist resistance fighter Marie Kudeříková, was selected for realization as her memorial in Brno. As a restorer, he participated, for example, in the replica of the allegorical statue Prague by Ladislav Šaloun on the building of the Museum of the Capital City of Prague.

In the 1990s, Preclík worked on the urban design of the facilities for the metro station at Republic Square and on the decoration of the U Šalamouna house in Prague's Křižovnické Square. In the capital city, he is also the author of commemorative plaques for architect Josef Fanta, painter Petr Brandl, the wife of the second Czechoslovak president Hana Benešová, sculptor Jaroslav Horejc, and Slovak painter Cyprián Majerník. Souček also mentioned his cycles: Ball at the Opera, Biblical Heroes, Dance of Life and Death, Ideal Monuments, Chess Game, Fairy Tale Beings, Elements, Who Plays with Death? and Witches and Their Executioners.