Jirí Kolár
Encyclopedia
Jiří Kolář was a Czech poet, writer, painter and translator. His work was divided between literary and visual art.
. Kolář joined the Communist Party in 1945 but left the Party the same year. He was not allowed to publish after Communists took control in Czechoslovakia
in 1948. He married Běla Helclová
in 1949. When police found his manuscript, Prométheova játra, in the property of Václav Černý
he was arrested in 1953 and spent several months in prison.
In the next long years of milder Stalinism he became a leader of a group of poets (among them Václav Havel
or Jan Zábrana
) in Kavárna Slavia (Café Slavia). Kolář's wild behavior lost him former friends (e.g. he threw coffee on Josef Hiršal
's shirt and was poured by his soda water). In 1960s he started writing experimental poetry (analfabetogram, cvokogram) from which he shifted to experiment in visual art. The failure of Prague Spring
1968 brought his work in the index again. In 1970 cerebral apoplexy
stiffened his right arm. He signed Charta 77 and used his scholarship to West Berlin
to emigrate. Since 1980 he lived in Paris
. After 1989 he visited his homeland more and more often. He got ill and spent his last years in a Prague hospital.
with such members as Jindřich Chalupecký, Ivan Blatný
, Josef Kainar, Jiřina Hauková
, Kamil Lhoták
etc.
In the Stalinist years of Czechoslovakia (1948-1953, the presidency of Klement Gottwald
) he wrote poetic diaries - Očitý svědek (Eyewitness, 1949), Prométheova játra (Prometheus
' Liver, 1950). In 1957 he wrote a paraphrase of a classical Chinese warfare tract
under the name Mistr Sun o básnickém umění (Master Sun
on Poetic Arts). In 1964 Náhodný svědek (Accidental Witness), a selection of his 1940s work, is published, and a 1966 censored selection from his 1950s work bears the name Vršovický Ezop (Aesop
from Vršovice
).
, rollage etc.
"Like most great artists of the past century, Kolář was both an anarchist and a reactionary. In order to “make it new,” the artist must systematically reject every aesthetic tendency that’s come before; the artist can either accomplish this task via exclusion or destruction. Witnessing first-hand the steady self-destruction of European civilization throughout his life, it seems only natural that Kolář would go the latter route – picking through the debris and disfiguring all that he came across, granting his objects a novel significance that certainly would’ve baffled their original creators." Travis Jeppesen
Life
Kolář came from a poor family of a baker and a seamstress. He got a training in cabinet making (he lost a finger while joining) and then changed trades (sanitation worker, bartender etc.) until 1943 when he became a full-time writer while he was living and working in KladnoKladno
Kladno is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It is located 25 km northwest of Prague. Kladno is the largest city of the region and holds a population together with its adjacent suburban areas of more than 110,000 people...
. Kolář joined the Communist Party in 1945 but left the Party the same year. He was not allowed to publish after Communists took control in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in 1948. He married Běla Helclová
Bela Kolárová
Běla Kolářová née Helclová was a Czech artist and photographer.Běla Kolářová belongs to the generation which touched off an iconoclastic revolution and "rearmament" in Czech art during the 1960s...
in 1949. When police found his manuscript, Prométheova játra, in the property of Václav Černý
Václav Černý
Václav Černý, PhD., was a Czech literary scientist, writer and philosopher- Bibliography :* Lidové kořeny současného umění, 1929* Karel Čapek, 1936* Esej o básnickém baroku, 1937...
he was arrested in 1953 and spent several months in prison.
In the next long years of milder Stalinism he became a leader of a group of poets (among them Václav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
or Jan Zábrana
Jan Zábrana
Jan Zábrana was a Czech writer and translator.His parents were teachers and politicians persecuted by the communist regime after the communist revolution of 1948: his mother, member of the regional parliament, was arrested and sentenced to 20 years of prison; his father, mayor of Humpolec before the...
) in Kavárna Slavia (Café Slavia). Kolář's wild behavior lost him former friends (e.g. he threw coffee on Josef Hiršal
Josef Hiršal
Josef Hiršal was a Czech author, poet and novelist.Hiršal was widely regarded as one of the most important Czech authors of experimental poetry; after early surrealistic writings, he made his literary debut with a collection of poems...
's shirt and was poured by his soda water). In 1960s he started writing experimental poetry (analfabetogram, cvokogram) from which he shifted to experiment in visual art. The failure of Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
1968 brought his work in the index again. In 1970 cerebral apoplexy
Apoplexy
Apoplexy is a medical term, which can be used to describe 'bleeding' in a stroke . Without further specification, it is rather outdated in use. Today it is used only for specific conditions, such as pituitary apoplexy and ovarian apoplexy. In common speech, it is used non-medically to mean a state...
stiffened his right arm. He signed Charta 77 and used his scholarship to West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
to emigrate. Since 1980 he lived in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. After 1989 he visited his homeland more and more often. He got ill and spent his last years in a Prague hospital.
Literary work
In 1938 his first poems were published in a private edition but they are not included in his complete work probably because they are openly erotic, describing oral sex (Ústnice), sex positions (Svícen a trakař) and sex with a prostitute (Růže Večernice). Thus Křestní list (Baptism Certificate, 1941) is considered to be his first fruit. This and the other three collections of poems from 1940s are part of a new existentialist poetic style of Skupina 42Group 42
Group 42 was a Czech artistic group officially established in 1942 . The group's activity ceased in 1948, but its influence on Czech literature and Czech art was still evident in further years....
with such members as Jindřich Chalupecký, Ivan Blatný
Ivan Blatný
Ivan Blatný was a Czech poet, member of Skupina 42 .-Life:...
, Josef Kainar, Jiřina Hauková
Jirina Hauková
Jiřina Hauková was a Czech poet and translator. She was a member of the Group 42 , together with her husband Jindřich Chalupecký.- Biography :...
, Kamil Lhoták
Kamil Lhoták
Kamil Lhoták was a Czech painter, graphic artist, and illustrator. He was one of the members of Group 42.- Biography :...
etc.
In the Stalinist years of Czechoslovakia (1948-1953, the presidency of Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
) he wrote poetic diaries - Očitý svědek (Eyewitness, 1949), Prométheova játra (Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...
' Liver, 1950). In 1957 he wrote a paraphrase of a classical Chinese warfare tract
The Art of War
The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise that is attributed to Sun Tzu , a high ranking military general and strategist during the late Spring and Autumn period...
under the name Mistr Sun o básnickém umění (Master Sun
Sun Tzu
Sun Wu , style name Changqing , better known as Sun Tzu or Sunzi , was an ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher who is traditionally believed, and who is most likely, to have authored The Art of War, an influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy...
on Poetic Arts). In 1964 Náhodný svědek (Accidental Witness), a selection of his 1940s work, is published, and a 1966 censored selection from his 1950s work bears the name Vršovický Ezop (Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
from Vršovice
Districts of Prague
Prague has a local-government structure of two or three tiers, depending on the area of town. At the top is the Magistrate of the Capital City of Prague , which is responsible for public transport; waste collection; municipal police; firefighting; ambulance services; cultural activities; care of...
).
Poetry
- Křestný list (1941)
- Sedm kantát (1945)
- Limb a jiné básně (1945)
- Ódy a variace (1946)
- Dny v roce (1948)
- Mistr Sun o básnickém umění (1957)
- Básně ticha (1965)
- Evidentní poezie (1965)
- L'enseigne de Gersaint (1965, also in English and German, title taken from Watteau's paintingL'Enseigne de GersaintL'Enseigne de Gersaint, or "Gersaint's Shopsign", is a painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau, which is considered to be his last masterpiece. It was painted as a shop sign for the marchand-mercier, or art dealer, Edme François Gersaint...
) - Vršovický Ezop (1966)
- Nový Epiktet (1968)
- Návod k upotřebení (1969)
- Očitý svědek (MunichMunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
1983) - Prométheova játra (TorontoTorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
1985, Prague 1991) - Roky v dnech (1992)
Translations and re-told stories
- Ezop: Bajky (1957, adaptation of old Czech texts)
- Kocourkov (1959, based on Johann Friedrich von Schönberg, written with Josef HiršalJosef HiršalJosef Hiršal was a Czech author, poet and novelist.Hiršal was widely regarded as one of the most important Czech authors of experimental poetry; after early surrealistic writings, he made his literary debut with a collection of poems...
) - O podivuhodném životě mudrce Ezopa, který rozuměl řeči ptáků, zvířat, hmyzu, rostlin i věcí (1960, adaptation of old Czech texts, written with Hiršal)
- Enšpígl (1962, adaptation of old German texts, written with Hiršal)
- Baron Prášil (1965, based on Gottfried August BürgerGottfried August BürgerGottfried August Bürger was a German poet. His ballads were very popular in Germany. His most noted ballad, Lenore, found an audience beyond readers of the German language in an English adaptation and a French translation.-Biography:He was born in Molmerswende , Principality of Halberstadt, where...
, written with Hiršal)
Plays
- Mor v Athénách (1965)
- Unser täglich Brot (ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
1966, translated by K. B. Schäufellen, in Czech Chléb náš vezdejší, Prague 1991)
Visual Art
His first exhibitions were in 1937, and in these exhibitions he displayed his collages. In 1960s he put painting and poetry together but he gradually fully turned to experimenting in visual art. In his work he used a scalpel to cut pictures out of magazines. He produced colors in his collages by gluing on printed papers. His collages were intended to influence the viewer's outlook on life; to raise the viewer's level of consciousness. He invented or helped to develop new techniques of collage - confrontage, froissageFroissage
Froissage is a method of collage developed by Ladislav Novák in which the lines made by crumpling up a piece of paper are used to create a drawing. One major exponent of the art of froissage is Jiří Kolář....
, rollage etc.
"Like most great artists of the past century, Kolář was both an anarchist and a reactionary. In order to “make it new,” the artist must systematically reject every aesthetic tendency that’s come before; the artist can either accomplish this task via exclusion or destruction. Witnessing first-hand the steady self-destruction of European civilization throughout his life, it seems only natural that Kolář would go the latter route – picking through the debris and disfiguring all that he came across, granting his objects a novel significance that certainly would’ve baffled their original creators." Travis Jeppesen
Travis Jeppesen
Travis Jeppesen , Florida is an American novelist, poet, and art critic.He grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina and moved to New York City at the age of 17. He received his B.A. from The New School, where he studied literature and philosophy...
External links
- Complete works of Kolář published in 1990s (in Czech)
- Works of Kolář (in English / Czech)
- The New York Times article
- Jiří Kolář Bibliography