Vítěz, Monument in front of Josef Kajetán Tyl Gymnasium, Hradec Králové, Czech Republic.
Vítěz is a free-standing statue by Jan Štursa, made between 1918 and 1921, showing a boy holding a branch. It stands in front of the Josef Kajetán Tyl Gymnasium in Hradec Králové. The figure derives from the antique Nike of Samothrace and was first used in 1918 as the Genius on the Svatopluk Čech monument.
Jan Štursa created the statue in 1918–1921; the boy with a branch first appeared in 1918 as the Genius on the Svatopluk Čech monument. A version with a lime branch crowned the Czechoslovak pavilion at the 1925 Paris exhibition, where news of Štursa's death arrived. The Hradec Králové statue stands before the J. K. Tyl Gymnasium.
The figure of a boy with a branch first appeared in Štursa's work in 1918 as the Genius on the Svatopluk Čech monument. The motif draws on the antique Nike of Samothrace, whose Greek name means victory. A second cast of the Victor stands in Prague before the Queen Anne's Summer Palace, placed there after an exhibition of Štursa and his pupils in 1977.
The statue stands free on its own pedestal in front of the Josef Kajetán Tyl Gymnasium, not on the building facade, so it can be walked around and viewed from all sides at street level. The site lies in central Hradec Králové, within reach of the city's bus and trolleybus stops.
The motif of a boy with a branch first appeared in Štursa's work in 1918 as the Genius on the Svatopluk Čech monument. A version with a linden branch was raised above the Czechoslovak pavilion in Paris in 1925, just as news of the sculptor's death arrived.
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