Czech Books The magical world of children's book illustrator Štěpán Zavřel
There is a very long and rich Czech tradition of children’s book illustration – from Mikoláš Aleš in the 19th century to Zdeněk Miler (of Mole fame) and Jiří Trnka in the twentieth century. In fact, the first picture book for children in Europe was produced by the Czech educator Comenius in the 17th century. An important part of this tradition is the illustrator Štěpán Zavřel (b.1932), a charismatic and influential artist who escaped to Italy from communist Czechoslovakia in 1959 and established the biggest centre for children’s book illustration in Europe in a village 60 km north of Venice. This autumn, to mark the tenth anniversary of his death in 1999, a collection of accounts by those who knew him will be published and I met with an editor of this retrospective, poet and translator Tomáš Míka, to discuss Zavřel’s importance for the world of children’s books.
Štěpán Zavřel’s house in Rugolo
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