Adolf Matura

Lifetime

1921–1979

Country

Czechoslovakia

Adolf Matura graduated from the Prague School of Arts and Crafts (UMPRUM), in the studio of Professor Karel Štipl. After a brief period working as an independent glass engraver, in 1952 he joined Ústřední výtvarné středisko pro průmysl skla a jemné keramiky (Central Art Centre for the Glass and Fine Ceramics Industry). He subsequently became chief glass designer at the newly established Ústav bytové a oděvní kultury (ÚBOK; Institute of Housing and Clothing Culture) in Prague, where he worked until his death.

Around 1957, together with Pavel Hlava, he developed vases made of layered, sanded glass with a shaped core. His designs were shown at the 11th Triennale in Milan (1957) and EXPO 58 in Brussels, while works from 1957–1960 also represented Czechoslovak glass in Corning and São Paulo. He designed blown, sanded and hot-formed glass, but his main field of activity was pressed glass, which he developed both artistically and technologically. His sculpturally shaped pressed-glass vases were created in the 1960s and 1970s.

For Borské sklo in Nový Bor, he designed, among other things, a decanter and glasses (1960), as well as blown, hot-formed vases (c. 1965), now in the collection of the Corning Museum of Glass. Together with Vladimír Žahour, he designed sanded lead glass for the Bohemia glassworks in Poděbrady. In 2025–2026, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague presented the exhibition “Adolf Matura – Glass Designer”, accompanied by a monograph by Jan Mergl.