Leonard Rotter (September 14, 1895, Vienna-Floridsdorf - July 14, 1963, Prague) was a Czech sculptor, woodcarver, and watercolour painter.
He is distinct from the landscape painter who signed as L. B. Rotter from Uherské Hradià ¡tÃÂ, whose oil paintings are often presented in auctions under the identity of Leonard Rotter.
Leonard (Leonhard) Rotter was born on September 14, 1895, in Floridsdorf (Austria), which later became a part of Vienna, to Leonhard and Albine Rotter. In 1900, the family moved to Prague (Czech Republic). He was trained as a woodcarver by Frantià ¡ek Lià ¡ka (1909âÂÂ1912) and later studied at the State Technical School in Prague under professors Jan Maudr and Alois Bouda. Between 1914 and 1917 he studied sculpture at the School of Applied Arts in Prague under the guidance of professors LudvÃÂk Wurzel, à  tÃÂpán Záleà ¡Ã¡k, and Josef Drahoà Âovský, where he focused on portraits and busts.
During the First World War, Leonard Rotter was seriously injured as a soldier resulting in severe nerve damage. After the end of the war he returned to Prague to continue in sculpture art. He started to work independently, initially in a provisional studio situated in a laundry and later in his own studio in HradÃÂany in Na Valech.
In 1926 the sculptor settled with his family in à ½ià ¾kov and moved his studio first to Dlouhá Street; later moving to the Old Town to the Kinský Palace. However, he had to vacate after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He acquired a new space in the Tyrà ¡ House in Malá Strana, where he worked until his death in 1963.
The artist married Julia Tolde and the couple raised an only child, daughter Romana Rotterová, born in 1931.
In 1945, during the bombing of Prague, an air strike hit the studio of Leonard Rotter and destroyed almost all of his work.
The sculptor interrupted his artistic activity only briefly due to health problems in the early 1960s, when his left hand had temporarily been paralyzed after a stroke.
He died suddenly of a heart attack in the middle of the process of his work on July 14, 1963, in a small apartment in Malá Strana.
The early work of Leonard Rotter included sculpture portraits and busts of some of the leading Czech figures of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as professor of conservatory and harpist Václav KliÃÂka [<nowiki/>] or the painter LáÃÂa Novák [<nowiki/>], published in the magazines Zlatá Praha 1924/1925 and 1925/1926, respectively, as well as a portrait of the prominent Czech Egyptologist Professor Frantià ¡ek Lexa. He also created portraits of historical figures, such as the 17th century's Czech revolutionary leader Jan Sladký Kozina, and many others.
Since the beginning of his artistic career, free creation has remained the core of his work - he created a number of smaller sculptures with philosophical themes such as Eternal Question, Life and Love, Desire, Twilight, and others. He also cooperated with a Czech lodge of Freemasons and created for them several works with the symbolism of order.
His red marble (slivenec) statue of the Czech poet Karel Hynek Mácha, based on several designs created for the Society for the Restoration of Karel Hynek Mácha's Memorial, was elevated and ceremonially unveiled in 1936 at the north coast of the Mácha Lake in Staré Splavy near Doksy, on the top of Jarmilina skála, the rock where Jarmila, one of the main figures in the poet's most famous work - Máj, jumped into the lake and ended her life. In 1939, however, the statue was torn down by Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront of Konrad Henlein) during the fascist occupation of the area. Later, it was requested by BÃÂlá pod BezdÃÂzem and relocated further from the lake on top of Hà ¯rka, where it remains until today, although the locality does not have the original context to the Society's intent. The original design is now stored in the Museum in ÃÂeská LÃÂpa.
In 1937, his 2.5 meter-high clay sculpture of a blacksmith was installed on the front of the house of a famous Czech engineer, Emil Kolben, at his residence in Bà Âevnov at the street Na Vypichu (today's BÃÂlohorská No. 1202) . The statue was destroyed during the reconstruction of the house in 1979.
In the late thirties (1930s), Leonard Rotter embraced the technique of watercolour, as the demand of plastic art generally declined due to the difficult war times. His watercolour paintings mostly depicted various alleys and monuments of Prague. He dedicated many years to create paintings of the Convent of St. Agnes.
Frantià ¡ek Dvoà Âák, Czech art historian, about Leonard Rotter at the exhibition of his watercolour paintings of Malá Strana and HradÃÂany districts, in 1957 at Malostranská beseda:
"⦠He knows both districts with his heart, not just with his eyes, he can depict them internally, not just with his technique, he knows his topics for several decades and he likes them".
Desire, 1940s
Eternal question, 1940s
Life and Love, 1930s
Twilight, 1930s
Globus
K. H. Mácha, 1936
Blacksmith, 1937
Emil Zátopek
Convent of St. Agnes, 1959
Prague Venice, 1959
Funambulists at St. Castulus, 1949
Leonard Rotter - akvarely a sochy, Horácká galerie, Youtube video