The suitcase levitates, the poachers bury the hunter. František Skála is exhibiting in Prague
How did Grandma Jaga control the girls before she ate them? Is it possible to saddle an ostrich? What did Felcar have to do? František Skála’s exhibition in Prague’s U Kamenného zvonu House arouses the desire to read. After a big show he had four years ago in the Wallenstein Riding School, this time the famous artist presents his illustrative work.
The exhibition has a retrospective character and arouses astonishment in anyone who thought he knew the author’s manuscript well, because he not only experienced the Rock in the Wallenstein Riding School, but remembers his reign of Rudolfinum in 2004, the big Olomouc parade of the last decade or last year’s exhibition Gallery.
In his freelance work, František Skála tells his own, unfettered stories from other worlds, but he illustrates himself to other narrators. There is a new art language for everyone. “I studied animated film, but I didn’t want to do it because it was a team effort. Dad was an illustrator,” the artist describes his beginnings in short video on the website of the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague.
The exhibition is introduced by several early paintings, which Skál’s father looked at. There is Pitcher HB, a tribute to the Dutchman Hieronymus Bosch, in whom the 22-year-old Skála got to know adolescence with a remarkable view. The 1978 painting Adolescence is dominated by a half-naked boy-escort, twisted in a suitcase. The rock outlined it according to the photos, but he let the young man’s suitcase levitate surreal in the air of an otherwise deserted landscape.
Skal’s handwriting and wit foreshadows a painting composed of weathered wooden houses called Beach Cloakroom, while the fragile graphics of the Garden of Olives from 1982 show an unexpected position.
Joke in the encyclopedia
Probably the first commissions to be seen here are sheets of popular science illustrations. Realistic drawings look like old lithographs, but they differ in detail from all factual illustrations.
František Skála: Forgotten Crafts, Miroslav Janotka, Karel Linhart, 1984. | Photo: Gallery of the Capital City of Prague
“I worked my way up to the superstructure, which I began to call humor in scientific illustration. Apart from the important moments, there are surprising situations in the background. Like poachers burying a gamekeeper or someone falling off a cliff,” make educational scenes special.
On another letter depicting extinct animals, he added an suffix known from mourning notices. A pheasant, a capercaillie and a field quail are signed as “mourning survivors” under the parte blapne nerapného. “The biggest commission was two books of Forgotten Crafts. In them I was able to show what I can do, and then I get an order from Albatross,” recalls the artist of the title, the 80’s is definitely proving successful. The forgotten crafts were published in 1984 in today’s unbeatable load of 135,000 pieces.
The funny, naive drawing from this book turned into a trnkovsky-fragile and mysterious illustration set in the Enchanted Mill, a fairy tale by Alina and Jerzy Afanasjew. But the darkest are the illustrations to the works of Karel Šiktance. In them, Skála’s inner, washed drawings in charcoal are close to the style of the painter Alén Diviš and the graphics of Bohuslav Reynek – for example in the Royal Fairy Tales, intended for older children.
František Skála presents his exhibition in the House at the Stone Bell. | Video: Gallery of the Capital City of Prague
Woodpecker with a butterfly
At the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, Skála’s illustration work began to connect with his freelance work. This was most visible when he created the author’s book The Great Wandering of Vlas and Brady.
“This legendary author’s series was created during the beginning of the postmodern and the founding of the Tvrdohlaví art group,” recalls the curator of the exhibition Zdeněk Freisleben and lists some examples. “Works such as The Great Woodpecker or The Butterfly on a Flower were created as separate objects presented at exhibitions and at the same time became an inspiration for the creatures that appeared in the story. . “
The book about Vlas and Brad became popular, and according to her, a full-length animated film began to be made in the mid-1990s. The preparations took two years, but due to lack of money, the film was never completed. However, the story appeared in 2007 on the stage of the Minor Theater in Prague.
František Skála: The Great Wandering of Vlas and Brady, 1987. | Photo: Gallery of the Capital City of Prague
Another of Skála’s author’s books, The True Story of Cílek and Lída, was also a great success. Photographic forest comics were created for several years. “Physically and time-consuming work similar to animated or feature film, involving puppet preparation, environment and real-time photography of the seasons, stretched from two months to two years and divided the series into two books,” explains the curator.
The first, shorter volume of How A Target of People was published by Meander in 2006. A year later, The True Story of Aim and People was published in Arbor vitae. It served as the inspiration for Jan Svěrák’s film Kuky se vrací.
The exhibition in the House at the Stone Bell in Prague presents about twenty mostly children’s books illustrated by František Skála. In addition, it contains not only examples of early works, but also the author’s travel diaries, distinctive ethnic and prehistoric paintings or other objects.
Exhibition
František Skála and other works
(Organized by the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague)
The House at the Stone Bell, Prague, the exhibition will run until August 29.
I don’t like Zeman, he only likes him, a certain type of people, he plays on the lowest human instincts, by the way he is folk, he speaks rudely, he tells lies, says Skála. | Video: DVTV, Daniela Drtinová