The apartment where we’re staying in Prague is owned by the daughter of the Czech artist and designer Zdeněk Šputa. She rents it out as a studio apartment but, in this rare case, high up on the sixth floor with angled windows to catch the light, the studio bit is real. Canvases, paints, brushes, oddly customised tools and easels used by Šputa are still in his studio along with stacks of 1950s art mags and newspaper clippings. There are also some photographs of Zdeněk Šputa who we discovered was highly regarded as a leading Czech painter in the 1940s. From the 1950s to the 1970s though he refused to follow the state style imposed by the government and gave up painting to pursue design for architecture, stained glass and tapestries. It wasn’t until 1980 that he started exhibiting as a painter again. As this is a studio post, we can also tell you that the photos from our visit to Nicolas Jasmin’s studio in Vienna are now up on
OTNSTUDIO.
Images: top, Zdeněk Šputa’s studio as it is today and below, Zdeněk Šputa at work in the studio photographed by Mike Meyer (you can see more pics on Mike Meyer's site here)
