Blue Artistic Ashtray-Bowl, Circa 1990

Jan Beranek  

Jan Beránek (* Nov 20, 1933 Polevsko near Nový Bor)

1948 - 1952 Trained as a glassmaker with his father Emanuel Beránek
1952 - 1956 Secondary Industrial School of Glass
1957 - 1987 Workshop manager and metallurgist in the glassworks in Škrdlovice

Jan Beránek was born in Polevsko near Nový Bor. He trained as a glassmaker with his father Emanuel Beránek at the glassworks in Škrdlovice, where he also worked continuously from 1948 until 1987.
From 1957 he ran a workshop, and for a short time he was also a metallurgist. In 1956 he graduated from the Industrial School of Glass in Nový 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 in 40 years of work for the Škrdlovice glassworks, he formed countless vases, bowls, cans, ashtrays, candlesticks and paperweights.
The Škrdlovická smelter, although it grew out of very difficult conditions, became an important creative environment in which glass masters collaborated with important artists directly at the smelter. The artists used the experience of glass masters in creating new patterns, in which they could apply the hitherto untapped possibilities of metallurgical processing, new technological procedures, color and shape variations. On the contrary, the artists encouraged glass masters to make new use of their craftsmanship and skills, so that even many glass masters began to model and, according to their designs, entire sets were produced in small series.
We meet Jan Beránek's first designs as early as the end of the 1950s, and his own work accompanies him throughout his life at the Škrdlovice smelter. Over the years, Jan Beránek has also realized designs by glass artists such as Miluše Svobodová, Dana Vachtová, Jiřina Žertová, Jaroslav Svoboda, František Vízner, Karel Wünsch, Stanislav Libenský, Pavel Hlava and others.