The Life and Art of Vojtěch Kubašta (1914-1992)
by Ellen G. K. Rubin
(from the catalog of the exhibition, Pop-ups, Illustrated Books, and Graphic Designs of Czech Artist and Paper Engineer, Vojtěch Kubašta (1914-1992), held at the Bienes Center for Literary Arts, Broward County Main Library, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Jan 25-April 30, 2005)
Vojtěch Kubašta, Czech children’s
illustrator, paper engineer, and author, was one
of the twentieth century’s most imaginative
and remarkable artists. He combined a knowledge of
Czech folk art, puppetry, architecture, and the graphic
arts to create playful universes of wonder and magic
that awed and amazed both children and adults. He
was not widely recognized during his lifetime, nevertheless
he created over three hundred titles that were published
on every continent, translated into more than thirty-seven
languages, and sold over 10 million copies. He left
an enduring legacy of pop-up and illustrated books
that will forever enchant readers.
Early Years
Vojtěch Robert Vladimír Kubašta
was born in Vienna, Austria, October 7,
1914, and raised in Prague, Czechoslovakia,
by his Viennese mother, Adéla, and
his Southern Bohemian father, Vojtěch.
When he was four years old, he was already
filling sketchpads with figures of birds,
boats, and dragons. As a young man, he
knew that he wanted to be an artist but
his more pragmatic father, a bank manager,
hoped he would become a lawyer. Architecture
had a greater appeal to the young Kubašta,
however, since he already knew “he
had to do something with his hands.” 1
In 1933, he enrolled in the Czech Polytechnic University in Prague, (Ceské vysoké ucení technické v
Praze), in a class of about ninety. He was tall, handsome, and personable
and quickly made friends with his fellow students. Soon thereafter, he
became a part of a dynamic foursome of students who called themselves,
the Quadrifoliacs, after a type of four-leaf clover. Robert Jecny , Cudla
(Rudolph) Ünger, Jan Hird Pokorny, and Kubašta were inseparable and
worked on many major projects while they were students and after graduating
from the Polytechnic. Kubašta toyed with designing a logo for the group,
a four leaf clover or the number four over a castle. Professors described
them as hard-working students “who always did more than they
were asked.”2 If a professor engaged one of them to work as an assistant, invariably the other Quadrifoliacs became involved as well.
As students, the Quadrifoliacs collectively worked on a competition for
a corner housing/commercial complex across from the Polytechnic that won
second prize. Each team member had individual strengths that contributed
to the success of their projects: Jecny was known for his organizational
abilities; Ünger supplied technical expertise and supervised the design
and drawings with Pokorny; and Kubašta, was put in charge of the final
presentation sketches. Pokorny commented, “He, Kubašta, was an artist
who studied architecture. “3 The foursome also collaborated on a
school project in which they had to measure a specific architectural detail
from the Clam-Gallas Palace in Prague. They chose the Grand Staircase,
considered one of the most beautiful in Czechoslovakia. Kubašta’s
final drawings showed his flare for great dramatic effect.
In spite of their student status, the Quadrifoliacs were able to find commercial
work. This was due largely in part to Jan Pokorny’s father, the Deputy
General Manager of Skoda Works, a major manufacturer of steam locomotives,
turbines, machine tools, and military arsenal. For example, they were awarded
commissions to prepare drawings and renderings for the Prague subway and
various other Skoda construction projects. At first, they worked in Porkorny
Sr.’s study, sleeping under the tables during charettes. Later they
moved to an apartment off campus that doubled as an office. They always
worked together “for [the] amusement and money.”4
While at the Polytechnic, Pokorny’s family also commissioned the
Quadrifoliacs to create personal objects. For example, the four were asked
to collectively design a set of wine goblets for a wedding anniversary
present. The enterprising young men hired a blacksmith to make the goblets
of pewter because silver was either unattainable or unaffordable. Kubašta
provided the whimsical decoration of a monkey holding a wine-tasting pipette.
For the Pokorny country house, Vojtech and Jan worked together to design
the furniture. Kubašta alone crafted a stained glass window and statues
of a
sprite for the pond in the garden and one of St. Christopher for the porch.
Today the house is occupied by the former deputy prime minister of the
Czech Republic. The sprite and St. Christopher statues remain standing
in their original places but the window has mysteriously disappeared.
Jan Hird Pokorny, who is ninety years old and Professor Emeritus at Columbia
University’s School of Architecture, recalled that Kubašta was “enormously
skillful…[especially] with illustration”, and the group “leaned
heavily on his skill.” He also described his old friend as “[having
been] born with a pencil in his hand”. “He was always drawing” and “could
work so fast.”5
It may have been Pokorny who introduced Kubašta to one of his life-long
pleasures: hiking. On one occasion, Pokorny planned an excursion for the
Quadrifoliacs into the Alps through Innsbruck. Arriving at a lodge in bad
weather, they found it shuttered and closed. In desperation, they banged
on the door and summoned the innkeeper who hosted the group while they
amused themselves with games of wit during four days of foul weather.6 Even though Kubašta never thought of himself as athletic, he frequently
found solace in hiking. His sketchpad drawings reflected a deep appreciation
for nature and his finely rendered images of flowers, mountains, and animals
became the basis for many later illustrated works.
During his school years, Kubašta tried working in various art media including
clay, metal, and etchings. In an early work, he experimented with oils
and painted a portrait of a beautiful Cinderella-like blond maiden sewing
a delicate garment. Dagmar, his daughter, believes the image is most likely
of his mother who is known to have worked in her own mother’s fine
linen and lingerie shop in Vienna. Kubašta especially enjoyed a school
assignment documenting disappearing homesteads in various regions of Czechoslovakia.
In one such drawing he chose the area of Southern Bohemia and captured
the folk architecture of Hluboká nad Vltavou, the small town of
his ancestors. Even as a student, Kubašta created illustrations of Prague
buildings for several of his professors' publications.
Kubašta’s signature changed as he progressed from young artist to
college student to professional artisan. At the Polytechnic, his signature
alternated between a KU sitting above the image of a castle’s turret
(pronounced ‘bashta’ in Czech) and the simple abbreviation,VK, known to collectors today. Finally, he arrived at his recognizable
script-like signature, V. Kubašta, seen on almost all of his well-known
illustrations.
After graduating from the Polytechnic in 1938, the Quadrifoliacs garnered
their largest architectural project. As a result of the Munich Agreement
of 1938, Czechoslovakia ceded major regions to Germany, Poland, and Hungary.
Pokorny Sr., sensing the rapidly changing political climate, felt the need
to invest in tangible assets. He purchased property in the village of Tři
Studně, located between Moravia and Bohemia and commissioned the recent
graduates to create a small chalet-type hotel. The industrious foursome
collectively designed the Hotel Sykovec, but Kubašta alone was responsible
for the design of the iron entry gates, a mosaic of St. Christopher (with
the KU logo over a castle signature), a fresco of a folk-costumed girl
on the stairway, and a stained glass window in the dining room. He also
contributed to the design of some of the furniture. On the entry wall outside
the hotel is another image of the costumed girl and a statue of St. Christopher,
patron saint of travelers, similar to the one at Pokorny’s home.
Nazi Occupation and World War II
Despite Kubašta’s degree in engineering and
architecture and Pokorny Sr.’s connections,
architectural projects were difficult to obtain.
According to a photograph annotated by Kubašta, he
began teaching around 1937 at the Rotter School of
Graphic Design. Kubašta then worked for a local plastics
manufacturer, Baklax, designing both household objects
and advertising and marketing promotions. While working
there, he made the transition from architect to graphic
designer. His experience on the Quadrifoliacs’ commissions
honed his decorative and graphic design skills and
laid the groundwork for later involvement in many
successful commercial projects.
Through the efforts of well-known professors at the
Polytechnic, (Oldrich Blazícek, Zdeněk Wirth,
V.V. Stech, and Antonín Engel), Kubašta was
able to secure several jobs designing dust jackets,
exlibris, and other illustration work. Pokorny contended
that Kubašta went into the field of publishing by
drawing scenes from Old Prague, which “especially
when the Germans were around, people liked and spent
money on. Publishing was good business,” and “Kubašta
made money.”7
The art of Czech puppetry flourished in the mid-twentieth
century with fairy tale themes predominating. “Artists,
authors and actors [wanted] to stress…the puppet
theatre [as] an artistic genre”.8 In the late
1930s and into the early 1940s, Kubašta worked for
Cenek Sovák, a popular writer and director
of a noted puppet
theater, Loutková scéna
v dome Komenského. Komenského is a
reference to Johann Amos Comenius (Jan Amos Komensky,1592-1670)
of Bohemia who in 1654 published, Orbis sensualium
pictus (The World Around Us in Pictures). Comenius
is known as “the father of books for children
and of picture-books especially”.9 Kubašta
designed puppet stage sets of small Czech villages,
the interiors of castles, and even some puppet costumes.
Featured in Sovák’s theater was the
puppet, Jezek Píchacek, a hedgehog. He used
the character to illustrate a series of books for
Sovák published by Dolezal in the 1940s. The
story of the hedgehog family is easily understood,
even by those too young to read or unable to read
Czech, because of the anthropomorphized expressions—arched
eyebrows, down-turned mouths, and joyous smiles—on
the faces of the animal characters.
In 1941, Kubašta illustrated, in color and black
and white, Joyful Stories for Children (Veselé vypráevní detem - Dolezal). It was written by Vlasta Burian, a famous
Czech actor of the 1930s and 40s known as ‘The
King of Comedians’. Some of the illustrations
for the book were reminiscent of the cartoons from
The New Yorker, especially the one of New York paparazzi
filming the performing dog and mouse. In order to
keep working in films while the Nazis occupied Prague,
Burian entertained various German officers at his
villa. The Communists later called him a Nazi collaborator
and banned him forever from the theater. Burian’s
reputation was later reinstated and his likeness
is now ensconced in the Prague Wax Museum.10
In 1001 Arabian Nights (Arabské pohádky
z 1001 noci, Dolezal-1942)
Kubašta
demonstrated his knowledge of art history by borrowing from the painting, “Escaping
Criticism” by Père Borrell del Caso (1835-1910). By using trompe
l’oeil, the genie in the story appears to escape the confines of the illustration.
The three-dimensional style of illusion foreshadowed his later pop-up structures
that characteristically extended beyond the margins of the page. The illustrations
in 1001 Arabian Nights are lavish and boldly colored, with fine line marginalia
and decorative initial letters giving the book the feel of an ancient sacred
text. The endpapers are remarkable because they place the reader in the center
of a bustling Arabian bazaar surrounded by fanciful minarets. Typical of Kubašta‘s
trademark style, a small dog is shown lost in the maze of the narrow streets.
At the publisher Dolezal, Kubašta met the eminent art historian, Dr. Otakar Štorch-Marien
and his career in the books arts was significantly advanced by the chance reunion.
Štorch-Marien’s new association with the long-established Prague publishing
house, Aventinum, served as a “driving force” for the struggling
company and “the firm entered a new and productive phase.”11 During
the height of World War II, Czech publishers, “managed… with few
exceptions… to withstand the pressure of the occupying forces attempting
to lure them into active co-operation, and avoided the publishing of anti-Semitic,
Nazi, or other pro-regime oriented production.”12 To circumvent supporting
the Nazi agenda, Czech publishers printed the classics or titles that appealed
to national pride.
Working together, Kubašta and Štorch-Marien created a series of three suites
in portfolios, each with five architectural lithographs of Prague’s monuments.
The lithographs were hand-colored, often by Kubašta’s younger sister, Jarmila.13 Each portfolio was accompanied by a few pages of text written by the most notable
historians on the subject. The three limited editions were: Loretta’s Meditations
(Loretánská Meditace-1943), Strahov Melancholy (Melancholie
Strahova-1944)
and Waldstein Palace (Valdstejnsky Palác v Praze -1944). The last was
by Zdeněk Wirth, a prominent art historian, who wrote extensively on Prague’s
historical sites and organized a movement for the preservation of its historical
monuments. In all the portfolios, Kubašta used a warm, soft-colored palette and
each one featured a uniquely designed title-page vignette.
The great success of the first three portfolios was followed by a fourth one,
Klementinum (1945). The Klementinum, a sixteenth-century Baroque structure in
Prague, was a Jesuit college and the site of a mathematical museum and astronomical
observatory. Today it houses the national and university libraries. Perhaps Kubašta’s
optimism at the end of the war motivated him to design a standout volume showcasing
fanciful images of the heavenly bodies and the signs of the zodiac. In any case,
the images marked the beginnings of the exuberant style that became his hallmark.
Unlike the previous portfolios, the cover and endpapers of the Klementinum were
luxuriously illustrated. With its large format and decorative endpapers, it appears
to be the forerunner of the Panascopic pop-up books that followed ten years later.
Aventinum continued to prosper during and immediately after the war as Kubašta
continued his collaboration with Štorch-Marien. It published the first post-war
literary classic, Pavel Eisner’s (1889-1958) Goddess is Waiting (Bohyneceká),
considered “…the apotheosis of [the] Czech language.”14 Kubašta
designed dust jackets for a documentary account of Prague during the final days
of the War as well as several other titles that Štorch-Marien was unable to publish
during the Nazi occupation.15
Post-World War II
In Three Centuries of Children’s Books in Europe, Bettina Hürlimann called the Czechs, “a nation extraordinarily rich in good illustrators.”16 “The classics of the Western, as well as the Eastern, powers [were] available, together with a colourful collection of their own [Czech] story-books,” and they were “illustrated by their own artists and obtainable in cheap editions.”17 In the post-World War II period, Czechoslovakian citizens lived under rigidities of the Soviet system. Kubašta and other Czech illustrators resisted the Communist call for artistic conformity by creating native and folk images with bold colors and lines. Hürlimann concluded, “this was also a time when other countries had very few picture-books to match these freely constructed [Czech] masterpieces.”18 After World War II, Kubašta continued to illustrate children’s books, dust jackets, colophons, maps, and posters. In 1949, he illustrated the first Czech translation of Winnie the Pooh (Medvídek Pu-Vyrehrad). It became an instant favorite, thus demonstrating the power of popular Western culture to infiltrate Communist societies.
Another example of the West’s influence was his design
of the book jacket for the Czech edition of Betty MacDonald’s The Egg
and
I (Vejce a já; Vladimir, Zikes-1947), which was made into a movie
starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray and whose photographs are prominently
featured
on the jacket. Surprisingly, the colophon has a cartoon character strikingly
similar to Woody Woodpecker. Kubašta confirmed his Southern Bohemian roots in
illustrations for the book, The Secret of Uncle Joseph by Frantisek
Herites (Tajemství Stryce
Josefa; Aventinum-1948). Set in eigthteenth-century Vodnany, he drew a series
of watercolors of homesteads, preserving for posterity a rapidly disappearing
way of life. Štorch-Marien, also from Vodnany, commissioned him to produce the
homesteads as postcards. He commented later that “even though Kubašta
lived and worked in cosmopolitan Prague, he was able to distill the essence of
the
countryside in his sketch-books.”19 Although he worked primarily with
the
publishers Aventinum and Dolezal, his illustrations also appeared in volumes
printed by Mladá fronta, Vyrehrad, Mladé létá (Bratislava),
Melantrich, Nová osveta, Vladimír Zikes, and Albatros. In 1948, the Communist Party came to power in Czechoslovakia and „turned private book publishing and book selling …upside down.“20 Czechoslovakian intellectuals tried to manage the upheaval to their advantage, but failed. Censorship became stricter and was put under the auspices of the Ministry of Information. “Over 370 publishing houses were closed down in [one] year...”21 The Ministry of Information now had control over publishing, selling, distribution, and even the types of materials published. As a result of the new laws, it took as many as five years for permission to be granted for the publication of certain manuscripts.
The Soviet Union’s plan to develop heavy industries changed the landscape of
Eastern Europe. Industrial complexes sprung up along the beautiful rivers
and overflowed into the rural areas. Kubašta commented on these changes in a
satirical watercolor painting of Sleeping Beauty. In the foreground, two traditionally
costumed couples dance happily, while swirling around them are four scenes illustrating
the modernization of textile production. The first is a traditional Sleeping
Beauty spinning yarn, the second shows spinning as a cottage industry, followed
by a weaver working on a hand-operated loom, and finally in the background, he
calls attention to an industrial wasteland with belching smokestacks, terrible
dragons of a new reality. Clearly, the new repression in publishing did not dull “the
prolific and facile” pencil of Vojtech Kubašta, who continued to turn out
hundreds of illustrations.22 Kubašta married Helena Elisabeth Safaríková of Prague in 1944 at the Loretta Church in Prague, a church he illustrated so beautifully for Aventinum. The following year his first daughter, Helena was born, and three years later, his daughter Dagmar was born. Kubašta, now a family man, had new incentives to seek buyers for his art. His beautiful wife was “strange and dominating”23 and a difficult presence in the household. Whether or not this affected Kubašta’s parenting cannot, at this vantage point, be gauged. But he immersed himself in his work while at the same time surrounding himself with his daughters. Because his studio was in the center of the apartment, his daughters witnessed and sometimes participated in his creative processes. He frequently turned his work projects into entertainment for the girls by making them, for example, a puppet theater with all the props and costumes. Kubašta met business associates at home or at local Prague cafés, often taking his children with him, and always dressing up in suit and tie looking elegant and handsome.
Significantly, Kubašta kept his own reference library. Impatient to work and eclectic in his tastes, he preferred to have research material at his fingertips. In nearby large files and shelves he stored magazines, newspaper articles, huge stacks of clippings, books on myths, legends and ancient cultures, and whatever else he thought would one day come in handy. When he worked on a story set in Arabia, for example, he had only to open his files to capture the authentic environment or costumes of the period.24
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