Václav Šára (1893-1951)

Václav Šára was born in Příbram on 28 November 1893, the fourth of six children of František Šára, a tailor, and his wife Marie, nee. Šístková. After graduating from the Pribram real school in 1913, he began his studies at the C. k. sculpture and stonework school in Hořice, graduated in 1917 and was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He studied for two years under Prof. Jan Stursa, then moved to the medal department of Otakar Španiel. After graduation he worked in his studio in Prague, often staying in Příbram.

In the 1920s Šára devoted himself to painting and drawing. He worked with various subjects, often from the environment of circuses, dance halls and carnivals, and was also inspired by fairy tales. This work forms a contrast to his later sculptural work, and was apparently intended for sale. He exhibited his works in Příbram in 1923 in the Na Příkopech café. He also took part in other local exhibitions, such as at the Golden Barrel in 1939 or at the Sokol Hall in 1940.

At the local landscape exhibition in 1930 he presented a plaster model of two figures from the Philosophical History. A few years later, a sculpture entitled The Work of Alois Jirásek was made in sandstone and unveiled in 1938 in Příbram's Jirásek Gardens.

In the sculptor's hometown we can see other works. In 1924, there is a memorial plaque dedicated to Karel Domina, the long-time director of the teachers' institute (now the building of the business academy), and another to the composer and teacher Josef Bartoš. In 1937 Václav Šára made a plaque with a relief commemorating two visits of T. G. Masaryk to Březové Hory. It was placed on the building of the school in Březové Hory and removed after a few years for political reasons. In 1992, a cast was made according to the author's model preserved in the Mining Museum Příbram and the plaque was returned to J. A. Alis Square.

On 28 October 1927, a monument to the fallen in the First World War was unveiled in Arnoštovy sady near the Ernestina Chateau. Plans for its construction in two variants were drawn up for the town of Příbram as early as 1917 by Jan Kotěra, the founder of Czech modern architecture. The author of the central statue of Peace was to be the academic sculptor Jan Štursa. Construction began in the last year of the war, but completion was postponed for financial reasons until the 1920s, when neither of the authors of the design was alive. The bronze statue of a young man with a banner and a branch was realized in a modified form by Václav Šára, a pupil of Štursa. A bronze plaque with the text "For freedom and a new life" was placed on the monument. In 2010, the work was declared a cultural monument.

The author's monument to the Fallen Sons of the Birch Mountains (1914-1918) also dates from 1927. It was originally installed near the Church of St. Procopius, but in the late 1950s it was moved to Hynka Klicka Square. In 1932, the sandstone emblem of the town of Příbram was placed on the town hall building, designed by Václav Šára according to the design of Karel Hojden, and the large state emblem on the building of the wire rope factory dates back to the early 1930s.

In 1934, the first of Šára's intended set of sculptures, an allegorical representation of Love, was placed on the balustrade of the newly landscaped area in front of the Prague Gate on Svatá Hora. In 1935, the author realized "Faith", and a year later "Justice". The original seven-part cycle of virtues remained unfinished. Šar's sculptures were later moved from the balustrade to the area of the St.

At the end of the 1930s Šára drew up a design for the interior of the Church of the Czechoslovak Church (the Congregation of Master Jakoubek of Stříbro) at Březové Hory, built in 1936. On the sides of the front wall there are two reliefs by the author, in front of the columbarium there are three sculptures with the titles Work, Love and Freedom.

From the following year comes a monument in the cemetery at Panská louka to commemorate the soldiers who died in the Příbram infirmary from injuries sustained during World War I. Other funerary works also come from the sculptor's workshop, such as the tombstone of the families of the builders Eška and Bufka or the relief on the grave of the photographer Otakar Mrkvička. A statue of an angel and a cross from the grave of Alois Parma, professor and rector of the University of Science and Technology in Příbram, have not been preserved in the cemetery. Other tombstones are in Jince, Olomouc and Olšany in Prague.

In 1938 Šára was commissioned to create a sandstone sculpture of Presidents Beneš and Masaryk, which was to be unveiled in Štětí on the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the independent Czechoslovak state. In early October, however, the Czech borderlands were seceded and the town occupied by German troops, so the work was taken away and hidden for decades. The planned "resurrection" in 1948 also failed, this time for other political reasons. The monument was reinstalled for the 50th anniversary of the Republic in 1968, but removed again two years later. It was not until March 1990, to commemorate the 140th anniversary of the birth of T.G.M., that the sculpture was unveiled again in front of the primary school named after the first Czechoslovak president.

The author commissioned the Most coal mines to create a cycle of bronze reliefs depicting underground work. After the liquidation of the mine in Břešt'any, they were moved to the building of the Secondary Industrial School in Duchcov. Patinated plaster casts were made for Příbram several decades later by the academic sculptor Ivan Lošák.

In 1947, the Hedvika brown coal mine in Ervěnice in the Most region was renamed the F. D. Roosevelt Mine. On this occasion, Václav Šára made a relief which was placed on the mining tower. Šára's design for a memorial to the miners who died in a gas explosion at the Kohinoor mine in Lom near Most in November 1946 dates from the same year. The extensive work was realized in 1948 by the academic sculptor Josef Bílek from Hořice. The monument is a cultural monument.

Šára made a memorial plaque on the birthplace of Prof. František Drtina in Hněvšín (part of the Chotilsko municipality) in 1946, which had to be removed after the Soviet occupation.

The sculptor's last work was the design of the monumental Red Army Memorial in Most, unveiled after his death in 1951 in front of the old brewery. During the demolition of the old Most, the sculpture was relocated to Československé armády Street in 1975.

In 2001, a monument to its first rector, Dr. Josef Theurer, was unveiled in Příbram near the building that housed the Mining College (now the Secondary School of Economics and Higher Education). The bust was created by Václav Šára in 1947 and was to be placed in the square named after this important personality. In the early 1950s, however, Theurer's name disappeared from the name of the square and it was renamed after Julius Fucik for decades. After more than fifty years, a bronze cast could be made according to a plaster model owned by the Mining Museum Příbram and the original plan was realised.

The sad stories of the hiding, moving or destruction of Šár's works reflect the turbulent history of Czechoslovakia throughout the half-century of the 20th century. The German and Soviet occupation and the period of the communist dictatorship, which wanted to change historical facts or at least to conceal them...

Václav Šára died on 17 June 1951 in Prague. He is buried in his hometown.

Processed by: Hana Ročňáková