Frantiska Blechova, Pohádková zahrádka/Fairytale garden

this and the next picture by unknown 

photographer on website geocaching 

Biskupice is a village of less than 300 inhabitants in the Olomouc area in the Czech Republic.

One of its former inhabitants, mrs Frantiska Blechova (1911-1996), is known because she has made an outsider environment by transforming the garden in front of her house into a fairytale garden.

Made from concrete some forty sculptures populate the garden, where one can see musicians, gnomes, princes and princesses, all kinds of common people and all kinds of animals. such as giraffes, zebras, lions, frogs, elephants, all items being colorfully painted and provided with hats and/or attributes suited to the depicted personality..

Mrs Blechova used to dress some of the sculptures with appropriate clothing, depending upon the season.

I have been looking around on the internet for more biographical details and didn't find much, just the information that mrs Blechova began creating the sculptures "later in life" and that she also may have been making (naive) paintings. .

I do not know if the house has a new owner, the property having been put on sale after mrs Blechova died. Since a geocaching website reports that even early 2013 the "cache" (= the sculpture garden) was found, I suppose the sculptures nowadays (2013) are still present in situ. 

The Znojemsky tyden reports that the mayor of Biskupice has said that if nescessary the sculptures could be stored in an empty building owned by the municipality.

More information about the actual situation is welcome.

More pictures
* Picasaweb has a page with a large collection of pictures (from 2008 and 2009), provided by Bub (sept 2008) and Sekyt (dec 2009)

Frantiska Blechova
Fairytale garden
Biskupice, Czech Republic
if still present visible from the road

Biskupice sculpture garden weergeven op een grotere kaart