Student with two faces. Only one was imprinted in bronze

Hundreds of people pass by the bronze sculpture of a standing girl every day. ‘Studentka’, as the sculpture by Miloš Axman is called, has been looking down on them from her pedestal on Technická Street for 35 years, a tube in one hand and a sprig in the other. What is the story behind this sculpture that welcomes students of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering every day?

When the academic sculptor and national artist Miloš Axman opened a letter dated 1 June 1979, he had no idea that years of work were about to begin. "Dear Comrade, on the basis of a consultation with the BUT Rector and on his behalf, I would like to address you with a proposal for your participation in a team solving the artistic decoration of the II. construction of BUT," read the letter signed by Zdeněk Denk, the Director of the Project and Development Department of BUT.

The budget of CZK 1,750,000 allocated for the artistic decoration of the new campus was intended to secure artworks "not only from the aesthetic and artistic aspects but especially from the ideological and political perspectives". "For these reasons, a commission will be set up to fully guarantee the high ideological level of the campus decoration," adds Denk. A handwritten note on the margin of the letter confirms that the addressee, Miloš Axman, confirmed his participation by phone on 22 June.

Miloš Axman was a relatively logical choice. As a student of the famous sculptor Vincenc Makovský, he lived in Brno at that time. As a politically active member of the Communist Party, he was popular with the regime, and work was abundant. He had previously designed a sceptre for the Faculty of Engineering, as well as the rector's sceptre for BUT and sceptres for the deans of the Faculties of Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Architecture.

The art commissions for the new campus were not entirely voluntary from the investor’s side. The laws of the time required that each public building allocate a certain portion of the total budget for "decoration". Thanks to this law, we can still come across sculptures in housing estates, former polyclinics, department stores, or administrative buildings from the normalisation era. Axman was among the exceptionally prolific artists, creating more than 60 works for public spaces during his lifetime.

Waiting for the Student

The BUT archives are silent about what happened in the following years. However, it can be assumed that Miloš Axman was already working on sculpture designs intended for the entrance staircase of the faculty. Additional documents from 1984 specifically mention a bronze sculpture called ‘Studentka VUT’ and provide the exact budget for its creation. "The sculpture should artistically express the festive moments of graduates during graduations and when entering contemporary life," states the document, confirming the placement of the sculpture at the outdoor staircase leading to the hall where graduation ceremonies take place. Sculptural work, bronze casting and the overall realisation of the sculpture was estimated at CZK 650,000.

Axman created two 1:3 scale clay models for the sculpture. The short-haired model did not succeed, and in the second clay model, this time in life size, the sculptor developed the girl as we know her: with long hair, a diploma in her left hand, and a sprig in her right. The regional art commission supervised the work, approving the 1:1 clay model in September 1985.

However, the construction of the Pod Palackého vrchem campus was experiencing delays, causing a delay in the sculpture's completion. Correspondence in the archives from spring 1985 onwards reveals discussions among the parties about delivering contracts and the finished work. The original installation date of November 1985 was first postponed to the end of the year and then to 1987. "We ordered the artwork in connection with the expected completion of individual buildings. However, the contractor, the national enterprise PS Brno, submitted a proposal for the gradual completion of the construction until 1987 due to a complete lack of construction capacity," explains production deputy Petr Smejkal, and the installation date of the sculpture was further postponed.

The tug-of-war continued until the autumn of 1987, when the Kameny Blansko company produced the granite pedestal. ‘Studentka’ finally stood on it on 18 November 1987. Less than three years later, its author, Miloš Axman, died at the age of 63.

(ivu)

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