Zdeněk Kolářský

Life and work

He was born on 29 April 1931 in Kostelec nad Orlicí. He studied at the glassmaking school of applied arts in Železný Brod and in 1956 graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in the studio of modelling, glyptics and applied sculpture of the architect Karel Štipl. For many years he lived and worked in Prague, returning permanently to his native Kostelec in the mid-1990s. He became widely known for the three-leaf logo of Česká pojišťovna (1971), used for 35 years at more than 700 locations, and for the logo of the National Theatre. He made free-standing figural sculpture, portrait busts, reliefs and plaques, and for the University of Pardubice in 1999–2000 a commemorative medal and the silver Pro meritis medal. He held the title of Meritorious Artist and was an honorary citizen of Prague, Kostelec nad Orlicí and Lanškroun. He died on 28 March 2022 in Kostelec nad Orlicí.

Coins and medals

For most of his career he worked with the Czechoslovak State Bank. He designed the three-koruna circulation coin of 1965 and commemorative coins. In 2011 the University of Pardubice published his monograph Between the Eagle and the Maiden; his coins and medals are on permanent display at the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice and in the Zdeněk Kolářský Cabinet of Coins and Medals in Lanškroun.

From the work in the AUREA range

The AUREA range includes his silver medals for the 60th anniversary of Čedok (1980) and the 600th anniversary of the death of Emperor Charles IV (1978), the medal for the 25th anniversary of the Cheb branch of the Czech Numismatic Society (1984), a restrike of the St Wenceslas ducat medal (1973), the Art Centrum Praha medal (1964), the medal for the 675th anniversary of the first written record of Kostelec nad Orlicí (1991), the medal on W. A. Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (1987) and a set of three medals.