In the Prague Municipal House will take place until the February 3rd 2008 the exhibition dedicated to the Czech painter and writer - Josef Lada, as this December we remember two important anniversaries of this artist: 120 years from his birth and 50 from his death.
The exhibition offers a representative sample of all areas of Lada’s work – from caricature, humoristic drawing, children’s books illustration, scenography, posters to free painter’s composition. We can find there some of his works which has not been published yet and that were considered lost even by the author himself.
The exhibition offers a representative sample of all areas of Lada’s work – from caricature, humoristic drawing, children’s books illustration, scenography, posters to free painter’s composition. We can find there some of his works which has not been published yet and that were considered lost even by the author himself.
The first of his drawings were published in 1904 in a magazine Máj (May) and two years after his first children book was produced as Lada was not only a painter but also an author of many stories for children that happened to be very popular for its originality and simplicity. He ‘gave a face’ to the main character of his writer-friend Hašek: a good soldier Švejk but what made him perhaps the most notable in the eyes of public were his charming winter illustrations of native village Hrusice that became with his unique visualization of the Holy Family, mangers with animals and carolers a symbol of traditional Czech Christmas.
Between the representatives of the Czech modernism we will hardly find a painter whose work has met with such a spontaneous admirations by different kinds of audience. His originality was appreciated even by Pablo Picasso but the biggest evidence of the vitality, authenticity and importance of Josef Lada’s work is the fact that there are constantly new re-editions his children’s books and his images are even today a requested motive of the Christmas cards and calendars. The world that Lada painted does not exist any more, and the major part never existed, as Lada created his own. He looked at things for the whole life with the children’s eyes and he had a gift to see in ordinary always something unique and miraculous.
Between the representatives of the Czech modernism we will hardly find a painter whose work has met with such a spontaneous admirations by different kinds of audience. His originality was appreciated even by Pablo Picasso but the biggest evidence of the vitality, authenticity and importance of Josef Lada’s work is the fact that there are constantly new re-editions his children’s books and his images are even today a requested motive of the Christmas cards and calendars. The world that Lada painted does not exist any more, and the major part never existed, as Lada created his own. He looked at things for the whole life with the children’s eyes and he had a gift to see in ordinary always something unique and miraculous.
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