Aleš Lamr

In Ostrava, he attended a primary art school run by the Litovel artists Zdeněk Kučera (1935–2016) and Jaroslav Rusek (1932–2016).

Aleš Lamr (12 June 1943 – 16 February 2024) was a Czech visual artist.

He presented himself as a painter, printmaker, author of murals and ceramic reliefs, sculptor and ceramist.

Aleš Lamr was born the eldest son of three children in a family of stove-builders and ceramists, settled in Litovel over several generations.

His sisters are also artists (Eva Bergeå Lamrová, * 1946, painter and ceramicist, Blanka, Aleš * 1949, photographer and ceramicist).

The ceramic workshop, with which many important Moravian artists collaborated, is still active today.

Lamr received his primary education in Litovel (1948–1957) and his further direction was influenced by the Litovel painter and teacher Karel Homola, a pupil of Max Švabinský.

In 1957, Aleš Lamr, as the son of a tradesman, was sent to an apprenticeship at the Ostrava-Karviná Mines.

From 1960 to 1964, he studied at the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts, Department of Spatial Design in Brno, under prof. arch.

J.A. Šalek.

There he gained experience in the field of scenography and mastered artistic techniques ranging from painting and printmaking to working with wood, glass, metal, plastic and paper.

He applied unsuccessfully for admission to the sculpture studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague.

In 1964–1966, he completed his basic military service, where he first joined the Vít Nejedlý Army Art Ensemble as a Mime artist and later was assigned as an artist in publicity and in a mobile print shop.

At the height of the New Wave of Czech cinema (1966–1968), he worked as an assistant director at the Czechoslovak State Film at Barrandov (directors Ivo Novák, Ladislav Helge, Josef Mach, among others).

At that time he shared a studio in Štěpánská Street with photographer Helena Pospíšilová-Wilsonová and belonged to the circle of artists of the Křižovnická School.

From 1968 he was registered as a candidate of the then Union of Czech Visual Artists and could earn a living as a freelance artist (he was not admitted as a full member until 1989).

He first exhibited independently in 1968 at the private Small Gallery in Žižkov (defunct since 1970) and in 1970 at the Young Gallery in Mánes.

In 1969 he travelled for the first time to Stockholm, where his sister was married, and visited the galleries there.

He was influenced by Pablo Picasso's monumental sculptures in Moderna Museet Park.

He exhibited at the important national show of contemporary painting, Painting 69 in Brno.

In 1969–1970, he received a scholarship from the Union of Czech Visual Artists and produced several film posters.

In 1971 he moved to Malá Strana and the following year he married textile artist Blanka Grebeňová.

His son Řehoř (born 1973) is an entrepreneur, his sons Hanuš (born 1976) and Jan (born 1983) are artists.

In 1974, a family exhibition of ceramics held in Ústí nad Orlicí, was attended by ten members of the Lamr family.

In 1975 he travelled to France and in 1979, in connection with his first foreign exhibition, to the United States, where he met Meda Mládková and visited galleries in New York and Washington, D.C..

In 1978 he acquired a studio in Malá Strana and began to work on lithography in the lithography workshop of Jan Tůma.

Later he also collaborated with lithographers M. Řehák, J. Lípa and J. Kejklíř.

In the 1980s he travelled to France, the Netherlands and Germany.

During the 1980s, he participated in various unofficial projects (Malostranské dvorky, Krabičky - Jazz Section, the private Kruh Gallery in Kostelec nad Černými lesy).

Beginning in 1982 he collaborated as a designer with the Husa na provázku theatre in Brno (theatre events Mr. Třesky and Mr. Plesky, 1987, with Jaroslav Kořán, 20 years of Husa na provázku theatre).

At the time of the fall of the communist regime in November 1989, he created two posters (New Life, Happened on National Street).

In the early 1990s, at the request of Václav Havel, he created several murals in the presidential office and in 1995 in his private villa.

He collaborated with a number of architects (E. Zavadil, M. Rajniš, B. Dudař, J. Lábus) and had dozens of realizations in mural painting and ceramics (together with M. Neubert).

Lamr was a member of the art department of the Umělecká beseda and between 1991 and 2013 he was a member of the Hollar Society.

He lived and worked in Prague and Petrovičky.

Lamr died on 16 February 2024, at the age of 80.

Aleš Lamr was one of the few essential colourists on the Czech art scene and his paintings are unmistakable in their style.

In 1992, he exhibited at the Seville Expo '92 (the Burning Bush exhibition, originally in the Emmaus Monastery) and in 1993, together with arch.

P. Fuchs participated in the artistic design of the pavilion for Expo '93 in Taejŏn, South Korea.

In 2002 he moved to a new studio in Hostivař.