Pres­i­dent Wil­son Memorial

1928, Bronze

Polasek received the com­mis­sion to cre­ate a memo­r­ial statue of Pres­i­dent Wil­son to be placed oppo­site the main entrance of the Wil­son Sta­tion in Prague. This, the first mon­u­ment to Wil­son in any coun­try, was the gift of the Czechoslo­vaks in Amer­ica to honor the man who did more than any other head of state to cham­pion the cause of sub­ject nations.

 

Theodore Thomas Memorial/ The Spirit of Music

1924, Bronze

The epit­ome of Polasek’s alle­gor­i­cal works, this orig­i­nal memo­r­ial on Michi­gan Avenue in Chicago, IL, was erected in honor of Theodore Thomas, founder of the Chicago Sym­phony Orches­tra. It is fully rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the majesty and sweep of a sym­phony.
A chal­leng­ing com­mis­sion, Polasek cre­ated sev­eral mod­els of the work. Of his final ver­sion Polasek stated, “… (the sculp­ture is) dig­ni­fied, yet sim­ple, assertive, but not too bold; a fem­i­nine fig­ure, yes, yet not too feminine.”

 

Thomas Gar­rigue Masaryk Memorial

1940 – 1949, Bronze

The Czech peo­ple of Chicago sug­gested a mon­u­ment be sculpted in honor of the first demo­c­ra­t­i­cally elected pres­i­dent of Czecho­slo­va­kia, Thomas Masaryk.

The work per­son­i­fies one of the leg­ends of the Czech peo­ple. In the cen­ter of the province of Bohemia is the Blanik Moun­tain, under which sleeps a heroic com­pany of medieval knights. When their coun­try­men on the earth are oppressed, the moun­tain opens and these ancient war­riors ride to their res­cue. It was said that dur­ing World War I the knights appeared in the per­sons of Masaryk and his legion­naires, found­ing a new, free coun­try after 300 years of oppression.