Eva and Bohumír Krystyn: We Learn from Nature

Name: We Learn from Nature

Author: Eva and Bohumír Krystyn

Dating: 1979–1980

Location: in the exterior on the front facade in the former Lumírova Primary School, today the Faculty of Safety Engineering, VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava

Execution: a glazed ceramic wall; mosaic dimensions: 220 x 600 cm

NATURE AT THE FACULTY OF SAFETY ENGINEERING

One of the university buildings outside the main campus of VŠB-TUO in Poruba is the building of the former Lumírova Primary School in Ostrava-Výškovice, which became the seat of the Faculty of Safety Engineering in 2002. The ceramic mosaic created for the former primary school building thus became part of the University collection.

It was created between 1979–1980, and its authors are a ceramist Eva Krystynová (1922–1987) and a painter Bohumír Krystyn (1919–2010). The married couple together created a number of ceramic mosaics for architecture in the Ostrava region. Their designs popularized the naive stylization of themes from the world of people and animals, worked with the principle of a collage of motifs, and often amazed with their colour combinations. It comes as no surprise since Eva Krystynová came from the folklore rich Moravian-Slovak border (born in Skalica), whose folk art expression resonated throughout her life. The persuasiveness of her talent is demonstrated by the fact that between 1950–1960 she worked as an art designer for the Children’s Centre in Prague, where she encountered and learned from a puppet theatre environment. The highest percentage of monumental implementations made by the couple can be found in the interiors and exteriors of the buildings designed for the smallest ones – in kindergartens and primary schools.

This is also the case with the Ostrava-Výškovice district mosaic entitled We Learn from Nature, which at first glance captures a viewer’s attention with its colourfulness and thickening of the elements spread on rectangular tiles of different sizes. There are also children playing and learning using objects reflecting phenomena occurring in nature (a boat and fish in the river, a paper swallow or an aeroplane and birds, or butterflies, care of flowers and their selection as well as birds’ care of their offspring and the variety of their species). As a goal of this endeavour, the achievements of the modern age by which humans actually imitate nature (means of transport, balloons, aeroplanes, and satellites), but also the scientific basis of all knowledge (the girl taking notes of her observation of nature) are depicted on the mosaic. The direction of the scenes towards scientific and technological progress is not so far away from the efforts of a university of a technical character, which uses the premises decorated with this work of art today.

Bohumír Krystyn

(1919–2010)

Work: We Learn from Nature
From the Life of Youngsters
Youth, Life, and Nature

Krystyn’s studies at the School of Arts and Crafts in Brno were interrupted in 1944 by deployment to a Prague factory. In 1945, Krystyn enrolled in the University of Applied Arts in Prague, where he graduated in the studio of the monumental painting under Emil Filla in 1950. In the 1950’s he painted the construction of the ironworks Klement Gottwald Nová Huť and portrayed its first employees. He gradually stripped his purely realistic painting style of details and gave it a significant impression. His landscapes and bouquets of flowers engage our attention by its multi-coloured, almost exaggerated colouring. Besides painting, he also devoted himself to ceramics. In addition to a number of works together with his wife Eva, he also cooperated with ceramist Lubor Těhník (a mosaic Family for the Cultural Centre of the company Pozemní stavby in Moravian Ostrava; a dividing wall for the Nová Huť in Ostrava-Zábřeh, 1965). Together with glassmaker Benjamin Hejlk, they designed decorative glass walls for the headquarters of the Ostrava-Karviná Mines (1965). Krystyn himself is the author of decorative grids in the apartment hotel owned by Vítkovice Ironworks in Ostrava-Zábřeh (1970 and 1971) or stained glass for the Spa House Petr Bezruč in Jeseník (Spa). He was a member of the Ostrava and Prague branches of the Union of Czechoslovak Fine Artists. He has participated in a number of foreign study internships.

Eva Krystynová, born Zvědělíková

(1922–1987)

Work: We Learn from Nature
From the Life of Youngsters
Youth, Life, and Nature

Eva Krystynová was born in Skalica, Slovakia. From 1942 to 1948, she studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague under Karel Svolinský. From 1950, she worked as an art designer for the Children’s House in Prague. She moved to Ostrava with her husband in 1960 and until 1968 she worked as an art designer in the community centre in Ostrava-Poruba. Later, she became a freelance artist. Her work was inspired by the folk traditions of the Moravian-Slovak borderland and the children’s art. In cooperation with her husband Bohumír she also created a number of works for architecture. Their unmistakeable ceramic (sometimes in relief) mosaics have been used to decorate the building interiors of kindergartens (e.g. Ostrava-Zábřeh, Ostrava-Lhotka, Havířov, Frýdek-Místek), primary schools (Ostrava-Výškovice, Fulnek Special School), secondary schools (Secondary School of Chemistry in Ostrava-Zábřeh, restaurants (Ostrava – Mariánské Hory, Opava), shopping centres (Klimkovice), the Hrabyně rehabilitation centre, and others.