The farewell to the sculptor Zoubek will be in a week in Strašnice

Prague - The final farewell to the sculptor Olbram Zoubek, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 91, will take place on Friday, June 23, in the Great Ceremony Hall of the Strašnice Crematorium. "The ceremony will be public, as Olbram Zoubek wished," Michal Bregant informed the Czech Press Agency on behalf of the family. Zoubek's works are known from many locations in public spaces, with the pieces he valued most being his posthumous mask of Jan Palach and the memorial to the victims of communism in Újezd, Prague.

Recently, Zoubek worked on a sculpture of Father Josef Toufar, which was unveiled this February in a church in Zahrádka near Havlíčkův Brod. Zoubek began creating the figure of the priest who was tortured by communists after reading books by Miloš Doležal. "It moved me so much that I decided to do it. For myself. And if it worked out, I would dedicate it to Číhošť or rather to Zahrádka,” he stated before completing the work.

Now people can see Zoubek's work at exhibitions in the Church of Saint Lawrence in Klatovy until June 18 or at the Museum of Beroun Ceramics in Beroun until June 25. A large retrospective exhibition that Zoubek himself prepared was visited by nearly 38,000 people at the Riding School of Prague Castle at the turn of 2013 and 2014.

During the normalization period, Zoubek had limited opportunities for public engagement. At that time, he worked as a restorer in Litomyšl, where he collaborated with Václav Boštík, Zdeněk Palcr, and Stanislav Podhrázský on the façade of the local chateau.

Visitors to Litomyšl can now commemorate Olbram Zoubek in the chateau's cellars, where there has been a permanent exhibition of more than a hundred of his sculptures, which he donated to the town since 1998. "When people borrow a guidebook, they will also hear the voice of Olbram Zoubek. We had him record information about each sculpture,” said Michaela Severová, head of the culture and tourism department of the Litomyšl town hall, to the Czech Press Agency.

The Litomyšl City Gallery is still considering how to commemorate Zoubek. Last week, the gallery acquired the rights to cast Zoubek's bronze study of the sculpture of Father Josef Toufar with a cross. After repairs to the chateau, it will be exhibited in the city gallery.