Cubism Sculpture Head - Viki (1912/13) - Otto Gutfreund

Cubistic bronze head - Viki (1912-1913) - Signed Otto Gutfreund

The bronze head titled “Viki” (1912–1913), created and signed by Otto Gutfreund, is among the most daring and emotionally charged examples of early cubism sculpture. With its swirling forms, eruptive energy, and haunting psychological presence, this limited edition work—cast only 20 times—represents a moment of radical experimentation at the very frontier of modern sculpture. Viki transcends portraiture, becoming a sculptural tempest of identity, motion, and abstraction. Created in Paris during a period of seismic artistic innovation, it stands not only as a revolutionary formal achievement but also as a deeply personal expression of inner turbulence and transformative thought.

The Origins of a Sculptural Revolutionary

Otto Gutfreund was born on August 3, 1889, in Dvůr Králové nad Labem, a town then located in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today the Czech Republic. His early artistic training began in Bechyně at the School of Ceramics, where he acquired a deep technical understanding of volume and surface. He continued his education at the School of Applied Arts in Prague before seeking out the heart of European modernism—Paris. In 1910, he enrolled at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where he studied under the influential sculptor Antoine Bourdelle. In Paris, he immersed himself in the avant-garde circles and encountered Cubism firsthand, not as a passive observer but as an active interpreter, forging his own sculptural language from the intersecting philosophies of abstraction, psychology, and form. These foundational years would position him as one of the leading figures in the birth of cubism sculpture.

Paris, 1912–1913 – An Explosive Moment in Form

The years 1912 to 1913 marked Gutfreund’s most radical phase, and Viki is its perfect embodiment. Created in the intellectual furnace of pre-war Paris, the sculpture resonates with the influence of Picasso and Braque but departs from two-dimensional deconstruction. Instead, it offers a volumetric explosion—a head that seems to be shaped by both emotional force and internal wind. This is cubism sculpture at its most expressive and experimental, where the face no longer merely records features but becomes a site of psychic eruption. While the human anatomy remains partially recognizable, it is engulfed by fluid, nearly botanical waves of bronze, suggesting hair, thought, and spirit in violent symphony.

A Sculpture That Thinks and Feels

Unlike the analytical coolness often associated with Cubist painting, Viki throbs with sensation. Its highly plastic surface—undulating, curling, and unfolding—creates a sense of becoming rather than being. The head is not static; it vibrates with potential energy, as though caught in the moment between thought and speech, between identity and dissolution. The eyes, partially submerged beneath layers of form, hint at introspection or trance. The mouth, abstracted yet still tangible, speaks of withheld expression. In this, Gutfreund advances cubism sculpture not only formally but emotionally. He reinvents the sculptural bust as a dynamic, evolving organism rather than a frozen likeness.

The Poetics of Material and Process

The bronze medium, with its ability to capture minute variations of texture and flow, becomes an ideal vehicle for Gutfreund’s vision. The play of light across the uneven surface enhances the impression of perpetual motion. The patina is rich and warm, deepening the visual complexity of the sculpture and amplifying its physical weight. Each curve and crevice seems the result of not only artistic intention but also inner necessity—as though Gutfreund were channeling a psychological truth through molten matter. Viki is not an object to be viewed passively; it must be circled, contemplated, read like a text written in form.

Limited in Number, Infinite in Meaning

Only 20 casts of Viki were ever produced, each one signed with Otto Gutfreund. This strict limitation reinforces the sculpture’s rarity and conceptual singularity. It was never intended for mass exhibition or decorative use. Instead, it is a meditation in bronze—an intimate yet monumental embodiment of the most transformative years in the history of modern sculpture. As a cubism sculpture, it stands alongside the most experimental works of its era, but with a uniquely lyrical intensity that sets Gutfreund apart from his contemporaries.

A Vision Cut Short, A Legacy That Endures

Gutfreund’s career was tragically brief. He died in 1927 at the age of 38, just as he was achieving widespread recognition. Upon returning to Prague after the First World War, he became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts and a guiding figure in the development of Czech modernism. His artistic evolution—from raw Cubist fragmentation to refined humanism—mirrors the spiritual trajectory of a continent in flux. Viki belongs to his Parisian years, the period of boldest risk and most intense innovation. It remains one of the purest manifestations of early cubism sculpture, where abstraction serves not to obscure but to reveal the complexities of human consciousness.

A Storm Transformed into Bronze

Viki is more than a head; it is a storm rendered solid. In it, Otto Gutfreund captures the tension between form and freedom, between individual experience and universal structure. Through the language of cubism sculpture, he unlocks a new dimension of portraiture—one that transcends likeness to express essence. This work does not seek to comfort or flatter; it confronts the viewer with the raw immediacy of thought turned to shape. As such, Viki is a cornerstone in the architecture of modern sculpture, a work that continues to breathe and provoke more than a century after its creation.

Height: 34 cm
Width: 26 cm
Depth: 24 cm
Weight: 7.9 kg
100 % Bronze