Hundreds of people pass by the bronze sculpture of a standing girl every day. ‘Studentka’, as the sculpture by Miloš Axman is called, has been looking down on them from her pedestal on Technická Street for 35 years, a tube in one hand and a sprig in the other. What is the story behind this sculpture that welcomes students of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering every day?
When the academic sculptor and national artist Miloš Axman opened a letter dated 1 June 1979, he had no idea that years of work were about to begin. "Dear Comrade, on the basis of a consultation with the BUT Rector and on his behalf, I would like to address you with a proposal for your participation in a team solving the artistic decoration of the II. construction of BUT," read the letter signed by Zdeněk Denk, the Director of the Project and Development Department of BUT.
Miloš Axman was a relatively logical choice. As a student of the famous sculptor Vincenc Makovský, he lived in Brno at that time. As a politically active member of the Communist Party, he was popular with the regime, and work was abundant. He had previously designed a sceptre for the Faculty of Engineering, as well as the rector's sceptre for BUT and sceptres for the deans of the Faculties of Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Architecture.
The art commissions for the new campus were not entirely voluntary from the investor’s side. The laws of the time required that each public building allocate a certain portion of the total budget for "decoration". Thanks to this law, we can still come across sculptures in housing estates, former polyclinics, department stores, or administrative buildings from the normalisation era. Axman was among the exceptionally prolific artists, creating more than 60 works for public spaces during his lifetime.
Waiting for the Student
The BUT archives are silent about what happened in the following years. However, it can be assumed that Miloš Axman was already working on sculpture designs intended for the entrance staircase of the faculty. Additional documents from 1984 specifically mention a bronze sculpture called ‘Studentka VUT’ and provide the exact budget for its creation. "The sculpture should artistically express the festive moments of graduates during graduations and when entering contemporary life," states the document, confirming the placement of the sculpture at the outdoor staircase leading to the hall where graduation ceremonies take place. Sculptural work, bronze casting and the overall realisation of the sculpture was estimated at CZK 650,000.
The tug-of-war continued until the autumn of 1987, when the Kameny Blansko company produced the granite pedestal. ‘Studentka’ finally stood on it on 18 November 1987. Less than three years later, its author, Miloš Axman, died at the age of 63.