Bud

After her traditional education, Hana Wichterlová shifted in the late 1920s to a new concept of elementary sculpture form drawing inspiration from her curiosity about nature and Eastern philosophies as well as her knowledge of contemporary French sculpture and the work of Brancusi. She also developed organic elementarism in her work inspired by plant morphology and produced by magnifying natural detail. The sculpture The Bud, the first of her vegetation themes, was first displayed in 1932 at the Poetry 1932 exhibition under the title Ragged-Robin referring to a papilionaceous plant, which captured the artist’s attention for its simple form and the vitality of its growth. In line with the meditative focus of her work, she concentrated on the inner essence of a form, creating a modelled symbol of organic energy and growth from a real object.