Jindřich Severa

Life and work

He was born on 5 April 1909 in Kopidlno. During the occupation he joined the resistance; according to his own written statement he belonged to the groups V boj and Trávnice. From 1945 until his retirement he taught drawing and modelling at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University in Prague, where he also obtained his habilitation. His earlier pupils included the later glass artist René Roubíček and the artist Adolf Born. According to the English Wikipedia his work was entered in the sculpture event of the art competitions at the 1948 Olympic Games in London. In painting he devoted himself chiefly to landscape. After a flood at his studio in Řevnice only a few of his sculptural models and sketches survived. His son-in-law was Jiří Černý. He died on 9 November 1980 in Prague.

Coins and medals

Medals and plaquettes form a constant part of his work and reflect his interest in the relationship between relief, lettering and architectural order. Among his documented works the portrait medal of the engineer Jan Perner (1815–1845), a pioneer of Czech railway construction who directed the building of the Olomouc–Prague line, issued in 1979 for the Railway Research Institute, stands out. The loss of most models in the flood makes a fuller reconstruction of his medallic oeuvre difficult.

From the work in the AUREA range

The AUREA range includes this very bronze medal Ing. Jan Perner of 1979, issued for the Railway Research Institute in Prague, patinated, 70 mm in diameter.