Ladislav Kozák

Life and work

He was born on 31 August 1934 in Hnanice near Znojmo. He graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in Professor Karel Štipl's studio of glass, glyptics and applied sculpture. After his studies he worked in applied art, designing pressed, sandblasted and cut glass, and served as a designer at the Institute of Housing and Clothing Culture in Prague. In 1969 he exhibited the trio of medals Tragedy, in which the motif of a falling male body expressed the political and social upheavals of 1968. He died on 22 July 2007 in Prague.

Coins and medals

His 10 koruna coin of 1993 shows Petrov in Brno (the 1993 and 1995 variants differ only in the placement of the designer's mark); the 2000 version shows part of a clock mechanism. The bimetallic 50 koruna coin of 1993 with its view of Prague is considered the peak of his work and was named the best circulation coin in the world for 1993. He entered many competitions for Czechoslovak and Czech coins; his designs were used for the commemoratives 100 Kčs Czechoslovak Spartakiad 1980, 100 Kčs for the 150th anniversary of the České Budějovice – Linz horse-drawn railway (1982), 50 Kčs for the 150th anniversary of the first Czech steamship Bohemia (1991), 500 Kčs for the centenary of the first tennis club (1993) and 200 Kč Protection and Creation of the Environment (1994).

From the work in the AUREA range

The AUREA range includes eight of his medals: silver medals for the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War (2005), for the Summer Olympic Games in Athens (2004), two Czech Olympic Committee medals for the Winter Games in Salt Lake City (2002) and a medal for the Winter Olympic Games in Turin (2006); further the bronze medal Svatá Hora near Příbram, the silver medal of the Plzeň branch of the Czech Numismatic Society with Kryštof Harant of Polžice and Bezdružice (1984) and the copper medal Jaroslav Moravec (1996) in an edition of 50.