Jan Švankmajer
Biography
Jan Švankmajer was born in Prague on the 4th of September, 1934. He completed his secondary studies at the Art College´s stage scenery department and his university studies from puppet theatre department at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, graduating in 1958. In the 1950s, Jan Švankmajer started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. At Laterna Magika Theatre he tried out certain approaches, including film tricks, for the first time. In 1964 he made his first short film The Last Trickery of Mr.Schwarzwald and Mr.Edgar at the ´Krátky film Praha´ studio. Since then he had created a number of short films until he finally achieved his long-held ambition to make a feature film based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland - Něco z Alenky (1988). He has exhibited his drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures' in Czech Republic and abroad.
Illustration Features
Jan Švankmajer is an outstanding Czech artist - filmmaker, director, animator and artist whose work spans several media. Also his literary work is remarkable consisting mainly of his literary scenarios and tactile poems, while his theoretical activities concentrate on examining the phenomenon of touch andd imagination. The blasphemous, black humour and emphasis on the ludicrous are by no means a negligible aspect of the imaginative stature of Jan Švankmajer and, together with his unusual sesibility and penetrating critical intellect, make up the picture of this creative personality. His work, whether in the sphere of films, fine art or theory, is closely connected with activities of the Czechoslovak surrealistic group.