Jiří Trnka

24 February 1912, Pilsen – 30 December 1969, Prague

Jiří Trnka grew up in a family that made its own homemade toys, which may have contributed to his multifaceted artistic interest: during his working life he also painted, sculpted and illustrated children’s books. After completing his studies, he started as a puppet-maker and scenographer, while after the Second World War he mostly focused on drawn and puppet animation, both as an artist and a director. In 1936 and 1937 he managed his own puppet theatre in Prague – the Wooden Theatre. In 1945 he became the artistic director of the Studio of Drawn Film in Prague (later Trick Brothers), where he created a number of animated films, including The Animals and the Brigands (Zvířátka a Petrovští, 1946) and the anti-war Springman and the SS (Pérák a SS, 1946). In 1946 he also founded the Puppet Film Studio.

Trnka worked with drawn, paper, hand-puppet and puppet animation. His most important, world-famous films include The Czech Year (Špalíček, 1947), puppet fairy tale Prince Bayaya (Bajaja, 1950), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Sen noci svatojánské, 1958). At the end of his life, he created important philosophical films, e.g. puppet film The Cybernetic Grandma (Kybernetická babička, 1962) and The Hand (Ruka, 1965), which represented totalitarianism. In the Czech Republic, his most famous films are Old Czech Legends (Staré pověsti české, 1952), an interpretation of Alois Jirásek’s monumental work, and The Good Soldier Švejk (Dobrý voják Švejk, 1954), based on Jaroslav Hašek’s novel, both narrated by Trnka’s friend and colleague Jan Werich. Trnka received dozens of prestigious international awards for his work, e.g. the Hans Christian Andersen and the Méliès awards for best animated film. His work combines fantasy and poetic inclination with technical ingenuity and artistic vitality. Trnka’s principal contribution lies in the liberation of Czech and world drawn and puppet animated film from American influences and in the assertion of great artistic fastidiousness.

Trnka is also famous as illustrator of fairy tale books (Fimfárum by Jan Werich, Míša Kulička, Czech translations of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, One Thousand and One Nights, fairy tales by the Grimm brothers, etc.). He wrote the children’s book Garden (Zahrada, 1962), which he illustrated himself. It was inspired by the baroque villa Turbová in the Košíře district of Prague, where Trnka had his studio and where he lived for years.