Background
Josef grew up poor in a suburb of Prague.
Josef grew up poor in a suburb of Prague.
There was no school program for sculpting so he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague instead.
His family pushed him to become a shoemaker but he shirked the duty by getting a job with a succession of Czechoslovakian sculptors. Afterwards he opened his own sculpting studio. He became greatly inspired by the French sculpting style as well as related arts such as photography and literature.
Josef Václav Myslbek influenced an entire generation of Czechoslovakian sculptors and his students include Stanislav Sucharda, January Štursa and Bohumil Kafka.
Myslbek is buried in Prague"s National Cemetery.