Czech artist Jiří Trnka has enchanted the world with his illustrations and puppet films

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"I've wanted to play all my life. And I've been playing. So it worked out."

"The hardest part is the beginning. The fear of blank paper, which sometimes manifests itself as laziness until something catches up with you, even boredom, to pick up a pencil and start..."

The penultimate day of this year marks the 55th anniversary of the death of one of the most versatile Czech artists, the founder of Czech animated film, a unique painter, illustrator, costume designer, puppeteer and animator of world renown Jiří Tomáš Trnka.

"Walt Disney from Eastern Europe", as critics called him, was born on 24 February 1912 in Pilsen, the older of two sons of master plumber Rudolf Trnka. He inherited his father's craftsmanship, and learned to work with fabric from his mother Růžena, who was a seamstress. From an early age he was in close contact with puppets, his grandmother Anna made dolls and horses from wood and painted mugs for sale. When as a young boy he received his first toy sewn from fabric remnants, he soon began to make his own and even learned to carve wooden figures.

After graduating from the municipal school, in 1923 he enrolled at the Real Gymnasium in Plzeň, where, under the guidance of drawing professor Jiří Skupa, he gained the foundations for his later artistic, theatrical and film work. Skupa noticed his artistic talent in his first year and invited him to work with the puppet theatre of the Ferial Settlements in Pilsen, which was led by the prominent folk puppeteer Karel Novák.

Trnka did not finish high school, in 1927 he briefly apprenticed as a confectioner and locksmith at the Škoda factory and eventually became a salesman for an art dealer. In his spare time he painted sets, designed stage sets and carved puppets for puppet theatre and for his own pleasure. Already at the age of seventeen, he won recognition at various international puppet exhibitions, first in Prague and a year later in Paris.

At the intercession of Josef Skupa, his parents allowed Jiří to study at the School of Applied Arts in Prague in 1929-1935. In 1934, he won first prize in an art competition and received a high reward for the use of his designs, which helped him to overcome the difficult financial situation that affected his family during the Depression and to finish his studies. He graduated in 1935 in the class of Professor Jaroslav Benda.

During his studies, he began illustrating books, designing advertisements and toys for the Pospíšil company in Rokycany (later Hamiro), and drew for a number of newspapers and magazines, such as Pestrý týden, A-Zet and Mladý hlasatel. He also worked for Skup's Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre, and in 1935 he toured Europe with them (Germany, Poland, the Baltic States).

In 1936 Trnka became independent and founded the Wooden Puppet Theatre in Prague's Rokoko Theatre. However, due to financial problems, it closed after its first season, which prompted him to start making a living as a book illustrator, and his original artistic style soon put him among the top Czech illustrators. During his lifetime, he illustrated more than a hundred books by Czech and international authors, and became especially famous for his illustrations of children's books (Mischa Kulicka, Bugs, Tales of a Thousand and One Nights, Fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, Fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, Old Czech legends, Fimfarum Jan Werich and others).  

In February 1941 Goldoni's premiere at the National Theatre in Prague Carnival in Venicefor which Trnka designed the set and costumes. This was the beginning of his long collaboration with the National Theatre as a stage and costume designer. His most famous scene for Klicperov's Bad Deer he repeated the role with director Jiří Frejka at the Vinohrady Theatre in 1948.

During the war, he also began to cooperate with the film studio at Barrandov, and participated in the production of films in the Barrandov studios. In 1945, he was appointed artistic director of a new cartoon studio, later named Brothers in Trickery, which produced, for example, the anti-war film Perak and SS and fairy tales The old man planted beets or Animals and Petrovskywhich won awards at the 1947 Cannes and Venice International Film Festivals and launched the Brothers in Trick Studio to worldwide fame.

"Art is good when it speaks to everyone. The only thing that matters is what the artist says, the content. It's about ideas, and they are not just Czech, they are always only human."

Trnka was particularly attracted to working with puppets, so in 1947 he founded the Puppet Film Studio. Over the next twenty years, he made 24 puppet films, including five features. He brought his craftsmanship, attention to detail and artistic taste to the world of film. He mastered all the basic professions - he directed his own scripts, was the author of the entire artistic component, including the puppets and their costumes. In doing so, he did not hesitate to consult with experts, for example, the designs for the feature film Old Czech legends consulted with historians and archaeologists. In 1953, this project also became the first in which puppets spoke in the voices of leading National Theatre artists.

Each of his films was technologically different and his work actually charted the design and artistic progress of puppetry. Under his direction, the first feature-length puppet film was made The Pallet based on the book by Mikoláš Alš and in 1948 a full-length Andersen fairy tale The Emperor's Nightingale with music by Vaclav Trojan. This was followed by a series of successful films that made him famous all over the world - Bajaj (1950), Old Czech legends (1953), The Good Soldier Svejk (1955), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959). Švejk was dubbed in the film by Trnka's friend Jan Werich, and he in turn illustrated Werich's book of fairy tales Fimfarum. He often collaborated with screenwriter Jiří Brdečka. Their work includes the puppet western The prairie aria (1949), which inspired Lipsky's film parody Lemonade Joe or Horse Opera. The creators Jiří Trnka and Jiří Brdečka themselves were the models for the faces of the coachman and bandit puppets.

He also collaborated with feature films - he created costumes for Bořivoj Zeman's film Once upon a time there was a king (1954) or the Hussite trilogy by Otakar Vávra (Jan Hus, 1954; Jan Žižka, 1955; Against all, 1957).

From 1956 he devoted himself more to illustrating books and participated in the preparation of the Czech exposition at the World Exhibition Expo 58 in Brussels. His original work is his fairy tale book for children Garden (1962), which he wrote and drew and was also made into a film, filmed by Břetislav Pojar and narrated for radio by Karel Höger.

Trnka lived in Prague in 1938-1958 in Košíří in the Baroque farmhouse Turbová, whose garden inspired him to write his fairy tale story. Later he bought Huml's house in Kampa, where he lived near his friend Jan Werich.

Jiří Trnka was married twice and had five children. He married for the first time in 1936 to his student sweetheart, the graphic artist, painter and later writer Helena Chvojková. They had three children together, Zuzana in 1938, Jiří two years later and Helena in 1945. They gave their first-born daughter a children's book called Zuzanka discovers the worldwhich Helena wrote and Jiří illustrated. His second wife was Věnceslava Assmannová, with whom he had a daughter Klára in 1949 and a son Jan in 1956. All his children inherited Trnka's artistic talent. Zuzana became an editor, Jiří an architect, Helena an art editor, and Klára and Jan became painters.

He returned to filmmaking in 1962 with, among other things, the animated film Cyber Grandma based on a theme by Ivan Klíma, in which he warns of a future in which man will be replaced by a machine. Considering the age of the film, his visions of human progress are wondrous.

"I am not against progress. I am against the deification of technology. I am against technology in any form terrorizing man."

In 1965, he made the film The Hand about the freedom of artistic creation and the totalitarian power that tries to control it. Although the film won numerous awards at home and abroad, it was banned for many years shortly after its release.

In the last years of his life, in addition to his work for Expo 67 in Montreal (he designed part of the World of Children exhibition - Toy Tree and Tree of Stories), he devoted himself to painting and sculpture. In 1967 he returned to the Prague School of Applied Arts as a professor, and until his death he headed the studio of illustration and utilitarian graphics. However, his work was hampered by ongoing diabetes, compounded by incurable emphysema, to which he finally succumbed on 30 December 1969 at the age of just under fifty-eight. He is buried in the Central Cemetery in his native Pilsen.

During his career, he won almost fifty domestic and international awards at various festivals (Venice, Paris, London, Karlovy Vary, etc.), was awarded the title of National Artist in 1963 and the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1968.

Wikipedia/ Facebook/ Gnews.cz - Jana Černá