Tomáš Skála

About

Tomáš Skála was born in Mladá Boleslav in 1970 and grew up in Štětí near Litoměřice. He first trained as a car mechanic; during his military service in Aš, however, he met his future wife Martina in nearby Luby u Chebu, the daughter of master violin maker Emil Lupač. In 1990 he joined the Cremona musical instrument factory in Luby, studied at the violin making school by distance learning and then worked for a Czech-Korean company making fine violins.

Since 1997 he has worked independently in his own workshop in Luby together with his father-in-law and teacher Emil Lupač. Around the turn of the millennium he passed his approval examination in the workshop of Tomáš Pilař in Hradec Králové and was admitted to the Circle of Czech Master Violinmakers. He has shown his instruments at international exhibitions in Germany and the Netherlands and at competitions in the Czech Republic, in Mittenwald and in Utah, USA.

He works from classic Italian models: violins after Stradivari (1720), Guarneri (1743) or Guadagnini (1779), violas with body lengths from 39 to 42.5 cm after Stradivari and Guarneri, cellos after Stradivari and double basses after Johan Bina’s 1877 model. He varnishes his instruments with spirit-oil varnishes, either in full varnish or antiqued on request.