Otakar Švec
Illustration — Otakar Švec sculpting in his workshop Otakar Švec (23 November 1892, in Prague-New Town – 3 March 1955, in Prague) was a Czechoslovak sculptor best known for his colossal granite Monument to Stalin in Prague.
Also recorded as Otakar Svec
Otakar Švec
http: fulltext=Otakar%20%C5%A0vec · Public domain
- Born
- 1892 · Prague.
- Died
- 1955 · Prague.
- Nationality
- Czechoslovakia
- Occupation
- sculptor
- Honours
- Order of Lenin
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Otakar Švec (1892 – 1955) figura come scultore negli archivi di autorità della Deutsche Nationalbibliothek e della Getty Union List of Artist Names.
Vita
Otakar Švec nacque a Praga (1892) e morì a Praga (1955).
Istituzioni citate
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek · Getty Union List of Artist Names
Catena di lettura completa (JSON)Reference Check
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
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wikidata · Q2031751 · wikipedia · Otakar Švec
In this article
Career
Career
A pupil of Josef Václav Myslbek and Jan Štursa, Švec had produced the important 1924 Futurist sculpture Sunbeam Motorcycle, now in the National Gallery in Prague, and at least three major public monuments to Tomáš Masaryk, Jan Hus, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The first two were destroyed by the Germans during World War II. • Illustration — Gigantic (15 metres high) monument by Otakar Švec in honour of Joseph Stalin in Prague-Letná. It was finished in 1955, two years after Stalin's death and destroyed in November 1962 Švec entered the competition for the Stalin Monument in 1949, not expecting to win. The sculpture was unveiled on May Day, 1955. Švec, horrified by his own creation, had killed himself days before it was officially unveiled. This world's largest representation of Stalin, dominating the city, stood for only seven years before the political climate changed. It was brought down in October 1962 with 800 kg of dynamite.
Identity
Identity
Otakar Švec is recorded as having received Order of Lenin.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1892
Otakar Švec born at Prague.
1955
Otakar Švec died at Prague.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q2031751: Otakar Švec
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
- “Otakar Švec”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority file
- VIAF cluster 158184462 for Otakar Švec, aggregating national library name authorities.
General reference · OCLC
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Otakar Švec, revision 1371066755 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Date of death according to Szczygieł, Mariusz: Gottland. Reportagen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008, p.107 (based on Czech archival resources)
- 2.Faltýnek, Vilém. Paradoxní osud sochaře Švece zaujal Martina Zeta. Radio Prague. 26 April 2006.
- 3.Stalin statue site reveals chilling remains of Prague labour camp, The Guardian (28 March 2021)
- 4.Asiedu, Dita. World's biggest Stalin monument would have turned 50 on May Day. Radio Prague. 3 May 2005.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 2
- Figuration/Abstraction: Strategies for Public Sculpture in Europe 1945-1968, by Charlotte Benton
- source on a recent show of Švec's work
References
Citations
References
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authority file
Secondary witnessreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q2031751: Otakar ŠvecWikimedia Foundation
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
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Distinctions
1- Order of LeninTerminology
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Sculpture
6,174 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- Oswald HusseinArtist
- Oswald OberhuberArtist
- Oswaldo MaciáArtist
- Otakar ŠpanielArtist
- Othmar SchimkowitzArtist
- Otmar OlivaArtist
- Otobong NkangaArtist
- Ottaviano NonniArtist
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