The Life and Art of Vojtech Kubasta (1914-1992)

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Legacy

Jirí Tibitanzl observed that, “nobody will ever be able to count all the books Vojtech Kubasta created... “54 In fact, a complete list of Kubasta’s oeuvre does not exist. Kubasta, along with Helena and Eduard Skoda, made an attempt to compile an inventory in 1989 with Opus VK, a thirty-page pamphlet with black and white line drawings of, undoubtedly, some of the artist‘s favorite illustrations. The earliest citation is to a compendium of poetry by a Czech group entitled, Havran, (Almanach básnické skupiny Havran), published in 1933 and edited by F. Rebec, for which Kubasta designed the dust jacket and illustrations.55

The sheer variety and number of ephemeral paper objects Kubasta designed and illustrated, including candy boxes, candy-carrying advent calendars, souvenir cards of Prague and Czechoslovakia, pop-up wedding cards, and troves of items collectors undoubtedly have yet to discover, is astonishing. He even made holiday candy holders that pop-up using a rubber-band mechanism. He worked in all areas of the book arts, including the design of vignettes, logos, posters, exlibris, colophons, greeting cards, book jackets, letterheads, advertising materials, stamps, pencil and pencil holders, and, of course, hundreds of illustrated and pop-up books. The last entry in the Opus VK was another Skoda collaboration dated 1989, in which children were to cut out parts of a map and then put it back together.

Although not widely celebrated during his lifetime, Kubasta was not completely unknown either. The great Czech national artist, Cyril Bouda (1901-1984), recognized his talent and ranked him among the artists he admired most.56 In 1955, Kubasta‘s Old Prague lithographs were exhibited in the salon of Vytvarné dílo; in 1974, The House of Czechoslovak Children in Prague Castle gave homage to his World Fairy Tales; another exhibit in 1979 featured his Mozart works -My Mozart at Villa Bertramka in Prague. In 1984, a major exhibition held in Vodnany, Czechoslovakia, explored the history of Aventinum and the collaboration of Kubasta and Dr. Storch-Marien. Kubasta‘s art as also been exhibited in the Biennales in Bologna, Frankfurt, Moscow, and Prague. Today, some of his original art is part of the permanent collection the Prague National Museum, the Smetanovo Museum, and the Czech Museum of Music.57 Recently, the exhibition: Pop up: die dreidimensionalen Bücher des Vojtech Kubasta was mounted in Berlin, at the Sammlung industrielle Gestaltung and in Leipzig at the Museum für Druckkunst (Museum for Print Art).

Despite having worked behind the Iron Curtain with little opportunity to share ideas around the world, Vojtech Kubasta still made a great impact on contemporary paper engineers. For example, Robert Sabuda, the well known contemporary illustrator and pop-up artist, remembered receiving his first Kubasta pop-up book when he was ten years old, “It was Cinderella and I couldn’t believe that a pop-up could have such beautiful artwork. My whole notion of what a pop-up book could be changed forever that day.”58

David A. Carter also appreciated Kubasta‘s „link to the past.“ He was not only „the paper engineer, illustrator and author but also [oversaw] the manufacturing….a huge undertaking.“59

Chuck Murphy, another pioneer in the pop-up revival, called Kubasta “probably one of the most inventive and assured artists to ever create children‘s pop-up books.” He continued:
I am always impressed with the economy of his design. He never over-engineered…and had a way of integrating his very bold linear illustration style with delightful mechanical devises so that the visual illusion seemed far moreelaborate than they actually were. I have learned quite a lot about the marriage of images and mechanisms by studying Kubasta’s work.60

Peter Sís [quote arrived too late for publication in the catalog]
"I grew up with Kubasta's pop ups and when I see them they remind me of my childhood. They ARE my childhood...They are magic." 60a

Sharing the fate of most children’s illustrators and paper engineers, Kubasta never became a household name. He died in Dobrís, Czechoslovakia, on July 7, 1992. Pablo Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain anartist once he grows up.” Kubasta had no such problem. A friend observed that „Vojtí was a big child himself and that is why he understood them so well.“61

This biography and exhibit would not have been possible without the generosity, guidance, and prodigious knowledge of Dagmar Kubastova to whom I owe much.~The Popuplady