Irena Sedlecká: The life and work of a remarkable woman by Caroline Cannon-Brookes and Anne Marie Fisher

Irena Sedlecká (1928–2020) was a distinguished Czech sculptor from Prague, who emigrated to London shortly before the Prague Spring of 1968. A prize-winning academic sculptor in the socialist realist tradition she became increasingly disillusioned with the communist regime, in Britain, she was to make an outstanding artistic contribution to both portrait and figurative sculpture.

Meticulously researched by the late Dr Peter Cannon-Brookes, Irena Sedlecká’s story will appeal to anyone with an interest in figurative sculpture in the Czech tradition and a desire to discover one woman’s journey from Soviet propagandist to celebrated portraitist of the luminaries of London’s lively theatrical scene and is best known for her monument of Freddie Mercury in Montreux, Switzerland. As a most talented sculptress she played a major role in the revival of the Society of Portrait Sculptors where an annual prize bears her name. A wealth of photographs illustrate the quality and variety of her work as well as the atmosphere of her studio and the famous sitters with whom she worked.

Caroline Cannon-Brookes is an art historian, trained at the Courtauld Institute and a former lecturer in the University of Oxford, Department for Continuing Education. She has led many tours to the Czech Republic to which she is a regular visitor.

Anne Marie Fisher has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in painting and drawing, followed by taking a course in sculpture at the Royal Drawing School, London. In the past she has curated the Fresh Air Sculpture Show in Quenington, Glos. and is librarian and research assistant for the late Peter and Caroline Cannon-Brookes.