Koloman Leššo
Biography
Koloman Leššo was born on the 3rd of November 1942 in Sabinov (Slovakia). In 1968 he graduated from architecture studies at the Faculty of Civil Engennering (STU) in Bratislava. Leššo started as a cartoonist publishing in newspapers and in Roháč, the only Slovak comic journal of that time. In that time he also entered into animation work for the new Short Film Studio Koliba (Bratislava, Slovakia). A long-term, fourty-year partnership with his schoolfellow – director František Jurišič resulted in a big number of animated films for children produced in this studio. Since 1971 he has devoted as a freelance artist to painting, ceramics, book illustration, photography and animated film. Leššo is signed under one hundred of films for cinema distribution as well as under TV bedtime stories. Apart from many European countries, his films were seen in Mexico and the USA as well. He won many awards for his film work.
Illustration Features
Koloman Leššo is a Slovak painter, graphic designer, cartoonist, photographer and cartoon artist. Like many other animation masters, he also started with caricatures, but soon yearned animate the static phases of his pictures. Each of his works bears his distinguished artistic vision. He never negates the graphic designer still concealed in him, but he is also allured by work with other mouldable materials. From polystyrene, he forms figures for the story on piglets. He plays with some stories of clay figures. He truly revels in working with wood – the smallest hero will be Palička (Little Stick) and Guľôčka (Little Ball). And with the series of ceramic fairytales, Leššo is present not only in making the screenplays and graphic design, but he also personally models the figures and fires them in a kiln. Leššo is a tireless workman of animation. With his own hands, he produces hundreds of fragments, he speculates about and makes up each phase. Each of Leššo’s films is an example of his hard work and his honest relation to this craft.