The Brno Vegetable Market will be adorned with Gebauer's statue of Mozart

Brno - The Brno Vegetable Market will be adorned with a statue of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 to 1791) crafted by academic sculptor Kurt Gebauer. His design was selected by the city council in a public competition that involved 14 artists. The depiction of the genius composer marks the beginning of a ten-year project called Sculptures for Brno. Each year during the following decade, a statue of a prominent figure associated with the city will appear in the streets of the South Moravian metropolis. This was stated today by Brno city councilors.
    "The statue will serve as a reminder of Mozart's stay in Brno," said Mayor Richard Svoboda. The artist performed in the city as a child prodigy at the turn of 1767 to 1768. The visit to Brno was part of the journeys across Europe that Mozart undertook with his father and sister. The venue for the performance was the Reduta Theatre at the Vegetable Market, where the statue is set to stand.
    Gebauer's design evokes Mozart's childhood during the time of his concert in Brno. The artist is depicted as a naked boy with angelic wings and a rococo wig, dancing on a clavichord, an instrument that Mozart supposedly played. The figure will look down on the Vegetable Market from a six-meter-high stone column.
    The city will pay a maximum of 1.5 million crowns for the creation and installation of the Mozart statue. In the first months after completion, the work will likely be placed in the foyer of Reduta; it will move to the square only after the renovation planned for the Vegetable Market next year. In total, the city has allocated 20 million crowns for ten statues in the project. It has not been decided which personality will be next in line. "I would appreciate it if it were a world-renowned figure who has worked in Brno," said Svoboda.
    Winning sculptor Gebauer teaches at the University of Applied Arts in Prague. He is, for example, the author of the design for the TýTý television award, the bust of František Langer, or the Monster in Prague-Dědina. His works are in the collections of the National Gallery in Prague and have been exhibited in Europe and overseas.

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> Brno plans to establish a gallery of sculptures of prominent personalities in the city center [27.12.2005]