GUTFREUND, OTTO

GUTFREUND, OTTO (1889–1927), Czech sculptor. Born in eastern Bohemia, Gutfreund was sent in his youth to study in Paris, and became a pioneer of cubism in sculpture. During World War I he joined the French Foreign Legion. His war experiences left a deep impression on his human and artistic development. Returning to Prague in 1920, he abandoned   all earlier formalism and turned to simplified, stylized reality, choosing scenes from everyday life. Among his best work from the cubist period are Anxiety (1911), Don Quixote (1911), and Hamlet (1912). The period of his artistic maturity is best represented by the monumental group Grandmother (1922), the allegoric groups Industry and Commerce (1923), and the life-size statue of President Masaryk in Hradec Králové, which was removed when the Communists came to power in 1948. Gutfreund had probably a more profound influence on modern Czech sculpture than any other of his contemporaries. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wander, in: Das Zelt, 1 (1924–25), 244–7; V. Kramář et al., Gutfreund (Cz., 1927); Otto Gutfreund (Cz., 1948), includes reproductions; Příruční slovník naučný, 1 (1962), plate opp. p. 305, no. 8; 2 (1963), 66, S.V. (Avigdor Dagan)