Jan Beranek

1948 – 1952 Trained as a glassblower with his father Emanuel Beránek
1952 – 1956 High School of Glassmaking
1957 – 1987 Workshop manager and metallurgist at the glass factory in Škrdlovice

Jan Beránek was born in Polevsko near Nové Bor. He trained as a glassblower with his father Emanuel Beránek in the glassworks in Škrdlovice, where he also worked continuously from 1948 until 1987.
From 1957 he ran the workshop, for a short time he was also a metallurgist. In 1956, he graduated from the glass industry school in Nové Bor (prof. Libenský, Rybáček and Kaňka). Jan, together with his brother Jindřich and cousins ​​Rudolf and Jaroslav, continued his father's beginnings and developed the craftsmanship of glass products. With his own hands, during his 40 years of work for the Škrdlovice glassworks, he formed an innumerable number of vases, bowls, jars, ashtrays, candlesticks and weights.
The Škrdlovick smelter, although it grew out of very difficult conditions, became an important creative environment in which glass masters collaborated with important artists right at the smelter. Artists used the experience of glass masters in creating new patterns, in which they could apply hitherto unused metallurgical processing possibilities, new technological procedures, color and shape variations. Artists, on the other hand, stimulated the glass masters to make new use of their craftsmanship and skill, so that many glass masters also began to make patterns and according to their designs, small series and entire sets were produced.
We meet Jan Beránek's first designs already at the end of the fifties, and his own work accompanies him throughout his life at the Škrdlovice smelter. Over the years, Jan Beránek also realized the designs of glass artists such as Miluše Svobodová, Dana Vachtová, Jiřina Žertová, Jaroslav Svoboda, František Vízner, Karel Wünsche, Stanislav Libenský, Pavel Hlava and others.

Submitted by InterArtGalleryGor