A memorial plaque made of white marble commemorates actor and playwright Miroslav Horníček at his birthplace in Pilsen's Karlova Street, February 15, 2023.
Pilsen – From today, a memorial plaque made of white marble commemorates Pilsen native, actor and playwright Miroslav Horníček at his birthplace in Karlova street number 36. The city had the plaque installed for this year's 105th anniversary of his birth, it was unveiled today, exactly 20 years after Horníček's death . The famous Pilsen native will also be commemorated with an exhibition at the town hall, Mayor Roman Zarzycký (ANO) told ČTK.
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“Miroslav Horníček was a renowned artist, a man of many professions, in short, a phenomenon. I am pleased that with this act we were able to show how much we value his work. I personally consider his life-long extensive work to be extraordinary. In addition, few natives spoke about their native Pilsen with as much love and respect as Mr. Miroslav Horníček, the great Pilsen patriot,” he said. Horníček is remembered in Pilsen only by his bust in a sunken park in the courtyard in the center of the city.
“It looks a little different than normal plates look. I was thinking of Miroslav Horníček, what he would probably like. And I made it a bit like a book cover. So it's unusually white, not black with gold lettering and a bust, but it's more the cover of the book. It's as if Miroslav Horníček wrote it and called it Here I Was Born,” its author, Klato artist Václav Fiala, described the album. For example, he has already created a commemorative plaque for Pilsen to another famous native, the harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková.
The city demanded that the plaque contain Horníčk's likeness. Fiala originally planned to create sgraffito instead of a plate, as Mikoláš Aleš did on a number of Pilsen houses at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, the fragmented facade of the house near the central bus station did not allow this, and there was also difficulty in choosing the characteristic features of the actor's face. Fiala went through hundreds of his portrait pictures. “No beard, no big nose or protruding ears, just a normal, kind, kind face. And then I noticed that the face was always slightly bent in moments of concentration. Horníček bent his head slightly forward and sometimes moved his glasses to his forehead, so that his nose into a slight soffit. When I drew it, it turned out that it is precisely the expressive element that characterizes the depicted face,” said Fiala.
Horníček will commemorate Pilsen from February 20 with an exhibition called Tady jsem was born in the mazhaus of the town hall. It will especially remind you of Horníček's traces from Pilsen. “We will also present photographs of Miroslav Horníček, which have been very little known until now, especially from his youth. The interesting ones are certainly not only the photos of his family and relatives, but also the pictures of contemporary Pilsen taken by Horníček's father, Bedřich, a passionate photographer,” added the curator of the exhibition and the head of the municipal department of culture Květuše Sokolová. The exhibition invites until March 10.
