Antonín Kybal

Lifetime

1901–1971

Country

Czechoslovakia

Antonín Kybal was born on 25 March 1901. In the 1920s, he began as a painter, but soon turned to textile design. In 1928 he founded his own studio and workshop. His products were sold mainly in Krásná jizba shops; by the 1940s, these included industrially produced loop-pile rugs with small geometric patterns. He made hand-woven tapestries to individual commissions, including for the interiors of a presidential villa, working with architects such as Josef Gočár, Ladislav Žák and Vladimír Grégr.

After the war, he directed the textile studio at the Prague School of Arts and Crafts (VŠUP), which he had founded. Together with students, he made a collective tapestry for the Czechoslovak pavilion at EXPO 58 in Brussels. In the 1950s, he designed textiles for, among others, the Old Town Hall in Prague, Czechoslovak cultural centres in Warsaw and Berlin, the embassy in Moscow, and Prague’s Jalta and International hotels, as well as the tapestry “Česká píseň” for the UN headquarters in New York. In 1967 he prepared the textile-fibre installation “Inspirace” for the Czechoslovak pavilion at EXPO 67 in Montreal. In the 1960s, he focused on tapestry, using textile inlay, quilting and the Art Protis technique. He died on 15 November 1971.