TRNKA: THE STORY OF A LEGEND 21. 5.-31. 8. 2025
The legendary Czech animator and puppet filmmaker, the maestro of illustration, Jiří Trnka, was born in Plzeň-Petrohrad in 1912. Throughout his relatively brief life, he invented and created puppets, worked on films as a director, scriptwriter, and designer, and often took on the role of an editor. He illustrated books, wrote the enthralling Garden for his little son, devised cinema advertisements, drew pictures for newspapers, and engaged in stage design. He was a true jack-of-all-trades. They called him the Czech Walt Disney. Trnka was left-handed, the same as Leonardo da Vinci, as recalled by Zdeněk Sklenář, Trnka’s student roommate, in his memories. As has been written about him, Trnka was so brilliant that he could stage Shakespeare with his puppets.
Jiří Trnka was a passionate reader and loved nature. As attentive observer, he knew and could express in his illustrations and films the gait of a cock, the wag of the lion’s tail, the shape of chestnut leaves. He hailed from a poor family, making toys for himself and his brother, which likely boosted his imagination as well as resolve. He said of himself that he had no talent and that filmmaking abilities need to be ‘nurtured’. He studied at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague, where he later became a professor.
During the pre-war years, when he accepted various commissions, Trnka explored the possibilities of different materials and developed his improvisational skills. All areas of his work are interconnected. What he devised in illustrations, he later used for puppets and filmmaking.
He created excellent drawings for no less extraordinary books written by Vítězslav Nezval, Jaroslav Seifert, or František Hrubín. Trnka’s friendship with Jan Werich, whom the draughtsman had known since creating stage designs for Osvobozené divadlo (Liberated Theatre) before the war, provided a constant source for his creative spark. His path also intersected with that of Adolf Hoffmeister, who dedicated several texts to him and captured the essence of Jiří Trnka’s personality in caricatures. Václav Chochola extensively documented Trnka’s private and professional life through photographs. Trnka was also involved in the exhibition industry, participating in Expo 58, creating a monumental puppet diorama featuring characters from Czech and international fairy tales for Expo 67 and devising an exhibition Man and Technology in the Changes of Time for the international pavilion. He unwound from work through his passion for cars. In his Mercedes 220, he infuriated the passengers of the government Tatra 603, as Trnka’s son Jan recalls.
Jiří Trnka’s films, which earned him numerous awards at international festivals, convey the following ethos: the weaker always triumphs over the stronger through their shrewdness, purity, truth, and authenticity. His illustrations are masterpieces with a clear message: creation is free, and anyone with the courage to try can achieve it. As František Hrubín has put it and Trnka has drawn: Take a yellow pencil and draw a pear. And a plate under the pear. Hurrah, you are a painter!
curators: Martina Vítková, Jan Trnka