Poster Designs / Sixties – Adolf Born. The Story of Film Posters.

Film posters in history. Sixties poster designs.

Poster Designer / Antonín Dimitrov

Graphic Art / Painting / Set Design / Typography

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• b. 27th February 1928, Mšecké Žehrovice/Rakovník, Czech Republic
• d. 27th December 2014, Bobcaygeon, Canada
• lived in Canadian exile from 1968

Education:

• 1945 – 1953, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (Antonín Strnadel)

Exhibitions:

• until 1968 mostly Prague exhibitions
• Toronto, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (member), Canada, 1991
• London / United Kingdom

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In few of our recent articles we have discussed absurdity and inappropriate behaviour of Communist leaders. Terrifying act of those in power and their constant fight towards fictional enemy was very systematical. In country as small as Czechoslovakia it was not impossible to succeed.

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Similarly to Jan Brychta, Antonín Dimitrov’s profile was simply deleted. Second successful attempt of leaving the country in 1968 took Antonín Dimitrov with his wife Olga to Canada. His first try when he and his soul mate swam across the river Danube to neighbouring Austria, just to get caught and handed in to Russian soldiers, cost him several years in prison and forced labor.

Before their disappearance, Antonín Dimitrov and his wife worked professionally as a set and costume designers in various theatres across the country. Antonín’s rebellious nature has been proved several times. Exclusion from the Art Academy for his incorrect political views (note: even the students had to be the members of Communist party. Same applied to parents, if there was a non member in the family, studying at higher education was impossible. Not talking of grand parents.) and his unsuccessful immigration right after that are only few examples of his misbehaviour.

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His collaboration with Czechoslovak New Wave directors, specially with Juraj Herz must have also spiced the soup up. Juraj Herz’s Cremator was the movie Communist could not swallow, similarly to other two titles in the showcase. In cases when the Communists decided to ban the movie everything would go off the shelf. Film director, author of the script / writer and the same destiny would meet the film poster.

Movie posters of Antonín Dimitrov are reflecting the times utterly. His posters are incredibly attractive, no matter if he touches the scissors or the paint brush. Excellent typographer and master of the blend, his virtues are sensibly hidden mostly in the collage. His posters are missing on one thing, there are only very few of them. He possibly did not design more than ten movie posters.

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Even though Antonín Dimitrov luckily led succesful life in the exile. As a set designer he and his wife worked on numerous theatre and opera productions. He was also head of the design programme at the prestigious Indiana University School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana[^1] . But for Czechoslovak film poster his departure was a great loss. Many fascinating artists remained and learn how to overcome the situation, while building one of the most impressive poster archive in design history. It would be truly interesting to see what else could Antonín Dimitrov pull out of that hat.

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Note: this showcase is part of our ongoing article Film posters / Made in Czechoslovakia. The story of film posters.

Available posters by artist or other fascinating film posters designed for Czechoslovak New Wave.

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Resources:

Literature:

• plenty with zero results

Online:

• abArt / Antonín Dimitrov / Big thanks to abArt for their research on invisible.
• Royal Canadian Academy of Arts / list of members since 1880
• [^1]:  Obituary of Antonin Dimitrov, Hendren Funeral Homes, Norwood and Bobcaygeon, Ontario / it is sad when only biography on artist can be found in his obituary.  Beautifully written, one should take a look.

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Movie posters in history. Showcase of 1960s poster designs.

Poster Designer / Anonymous Artists

It would be very hard to define a common practice or visual language of Anonymous poster designers in Czechoslovakia. Even harder with Sixties, as the period offered so much surprises and unpredictable twists in both politics and culture. It seems like one can never live without the other (somehow never in successful harmony). Specially politicians were always dependant on cultural demagogy, using visual propaganda to their needs.

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Careful and very modern selection of colours was used for both parts of Knights of the Black Cross, 1961.

War movies were always highlights, particularly those showing war heroes in Socialist sort of way. Ongoing currency, no matter what’s the weather.

Symbols, hints and playful thoughts were always around poster making.

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There is nothing unusual about Anonymous artists (if own decision), but being unknown artist in the discipline, where displaying signature is relevant/appropriate (n. Karel Vaca, Dobroslav Foll, Karel Teissig and others) raises several questions.

Earlier in the second part of our article on history of poster art  in Czechoslovakia we have mentioned censorship as the part / instrument of the Communist doctrine. Communist party was  the one and only expert on art, which might sound funny but the reality was not so much, Social Realism did exist, after all. In addition to films ÚPF (Ústřední Půjčovna Filmů/ Formal state distribution 1957 – 1991) was also commissioning movie posters. Both were deciding what could be shown in the cinemas. Were they somehow responsible for hiding artists identity?

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From Switzerland to Vietnam, poster designs made by Unknown Artists covered all sorts of spectacular, if not even controversial movies.

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We know that the film poster committee always consisted of few graphic artists (2-3). They would constantly try to give green light to the proposed poster designs. Were they also turning the blind eye to help fellow artists (obstacle/potential traitors and pests[^1]) in getting at least some sort of a commission? We believe it could be possible as the demand for the movies was quite high and each movie had to have its own poster. Still, for some reasons several artists had to remain unknown.

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By the end of Sixties photography techniques were commonly used in various poster designs. Above another example of photograph overtaking the space.

The Sweet Games of Last Summer (1970), based on Guy de Maupassant’s novel was premiered in Czechoslovakia only once. Film directed by Juraj Herz (The Cremator) came back to distribution again in 1988[^2].

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Looking at their movie posters many years later, we can observe some fascinating poster designs. They do not lack any of the visual qualities of other Czechoslovak poster artists. The pity is, they could never take part in any of the ongoing poster exhibitions of the time. We will possibly never be able to find out who were the authors of those magnificent movie posters, or how many artists were creating anonymously, but they surely deserve our appreciation. Until 1989 hundreds of poster designs were created by Unknown artists. There was no one to hide from after that.

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Literature:

• [^1]:  Toto čudesné 21.Storočie / This peculiar 21st century (unofficial translation), Tomáš Štrauss, Kalligram 2009. (Book is not so much about the movie posters, but Tomáš Štrauss, expert on Totalitarian, art critic/historian, said it to the point)
• [^2]: https://sk.wikipedia.org/

Note on previous articles:

• Poster Art / Made in Czechoslovakia. The story of film posters. Take 1.
• Poster Art / Made in Czechoslovakia. The story of film posters. Take 2.

Other posters designs by Unknown artists on jozefSquare.

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Film posters in history. Sixties poster designs.

Poster Designer / Jiří Balcar

Painting / Graphic Art / Typography

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• 26th of August 1929, Kolín
• 28th of August 1968, Prague

Education:

• 1947-1948, Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague
• 1948-1953, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (prof. F. Tichý, F. Muzika)

Awards:

• 1960, The most beautiful book of the Year, (Brno ?)
• 1962, Toulouse-Lautrec Prize, Paris (film poster Moby Dick)
• 1964, Honorable Mention, First Czechoslovak Showcase of Poster and Promotional Graphic Art, Brno[^1]

Film posters created: 34 (1960-1967)[^2]

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Czech artist Jiří Balcar could easily belong to one of the most fascinating poster designers of the Sixties. It’s hard to judge by the small number of his posters in our collection, but his artwork as we are finding out, spreads all across the globe (short list bellow). Internationally started off at Farleigh Dickinson University in Madison (New Jersey) where he took part in International Invitational Seminar of Art, followed by exhibition in New York in 1964[^3] , Berlin (1965-66) and Wien (1966). Paris exhibition in Musée d’Art Moderne (1969) was held soon after his early death in 1968.

A wide spectrum of his artistic experiments are brought in from the painting and are reflected in his poster designs. Extensive use of letter templates, sometimes broken into separate parts, wise and bright selection of colours (unless Monochromatic, or sensible mix of both), unconventional use of photography and perfect understanding of space. His faceless figures, motif reappearing on several of his paintings, could become alive only on the film poster.

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Jiří Balcar was the member of several art groups.

• 1957-58, May 57 Group (J.Duchoň, R.Fremund, Z.Palcr …)
• 1958-?, Group G / Skupina G ( L.Dydek, J.Kubíček …)
• 1961-?, Konfrontation (B.Dlouhý …)
• 1961-0, Hollar Association of Czech Graphic Artists (A.Born, J.Duchoň, J.Šalamoun …)
• 1962-1968, Union of Czechoslovak Fine Artists

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His artwork takes place in collections of museums and galleries worldwide. We have picked little selection with direct links.

• The Baruch Foundation (impressive collection of Jiří Balcar‘s portfolio and other artists from behind the “Iron Curtain”), Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
• The British Museum, London, United Kingdom
• Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
• Czech Museum of Fine Arts, Prague, Czech Republic
• Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York, USA
• National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA
• Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark
• Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

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Note: this showcase is part of our ongoing article Film posters / Made in Czechoslovakia. The story of film posters.

Sixties film posters available in our shop.

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Literature:

• [^2]:  Flashback / Czech and Slovak Film Posters 1959-1989, ed. Libor Gronský, Marek Perůtka, Michal Soukup, Olomouc Museum of Art, 2004. (p.41)

Online resources:

• abArt / Jiří Balcar
• [^1]:  CzechLit – Czech Literature Online
• [^3]:  The Baruch Foundation

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Film posters in history. Sixties poster designs.

Poster Designer / Josef Duchoň

Book Illustration / Fine Art / Graphic Design / Typography

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• b. 17th January 1929, Hostěradice (Prague-West), Czech Republic

Education:

• 1945 − 1949, State Graphic School, Prague (Richard Lander)
• 1949 − 1955, Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, Prague (Karel Svolinský)

Art Groups:

• Association of Czech Graphic Artists Hollar / Sdružení českých umělců grafiků Hollar (1957)
• May 57 / Máj 57 (1964)

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Remember the day when we were unfolding our first large size movie poster. There was quite an excitement about the whole thing. Firstly it was about the size of a poster. All of our movie posters were in A3 size until then and we were astonished by the remarkable change in dimensions. Almost three times larger in size, movie poster offered much clearer detail and we had impression that printing was handled with slightly extra care. For common reason as we had later found out, A1 posters were bit more representative, they were used occasionally for poster exhibitions. Our second astonishment was the visual content.

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Josef Duchoň’s lovingly puzzled collage for children’s adventurous movie set in the jungle (Black Mountain, 1972) was tenderly looking at us. What a joy! His movie posters have become one of our most favourite ever since. As we are describing the temperature, we could also mention, that we have very similar feelings towards Ever Alexander Půček‘s children’s posters.

Fascination of Josef Duchoň with children’s fantasy is in the right place and it was frequently reflected in his book illustrations. From 1959 he was co-working for the State publisher of children book as an illustrator. Early 1960s brought Josef Duchoň also to movie poster design. He created over two dozens of exceptionally impressive movie posters in period of almost 20 years[^1].

His work is extremely explosive, but not in a destructive way. On the other hand, Josef Duchoň is using the mixture of several artistic methods to reach viewer’s sensation. As a surreal artist his choice of collage technique is natural. Wonderful variation of live pastel colours achieved by the use of elegantly shaped and carefully placed woodcuts and his manipulation with objects is masterful. Thanks to monochrome cut outs and neat typography his movie posters are gaining quite significant depth and very vibrant character.

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Josef Duchoň started exhibiting as a member of Association of Czech Graphic Artists Hollar in mid 1950s[^2]. (Important art group established in Prague, 1917.) Among 161[^3] Czech leading artists and graphic designers one can find other interesting poster artists such as Jiří Balcar, Adolf Born, Jan Kubíček, Jiří Šalamoun or Jaroslav Sůra to name few.

His first solo exhibition is dated to 1960. Liberal Czechoslovakia allowed Josef Duchoň to exhibit work also internationally. He took part in Biennale of Young Artists / Paris (France, 1963), Intergrafik / Berlin (Germany, 1965), Myth of the XXth Century / Coventry (UK, 1967) or in exhibition of Czech graphic artists in Oregon (USA, 1967). It seems that 1970s political changes stopped his exhibition activities for some time. There was no place for surreal, or any sort of abstraction in uniformed Czechoslovakia. However children’s publications were not censored, anything was possible in there and movie posters just very mildly[^4]. Josef Duchoň remained faithful to a fantasy.

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Note: this showcase is part of our ongoing article Film posters / Made in Czechoslovakia. The story of film posters.

Please see other fascinating posters designed by the artist.

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Resources:

Literature:

• [^1]: Collective authors: Czech film posters of 20th century / The Moravian Gallery in Brno, Exlibris Prague, 2004. Josef Duchoň’s movie poster appears in year 1964 in their chronological catalogue. Our poster archive dates his movie poster activity up to 1981.

Online:

• [^2]: abArt / Josef Duchoň / Big thanks to abArt for their research on invisible.
• [^3]: cs.Wikipedia.org / Association of Czech Graphic Artists Hollar
• Prostor / Extensive list of artist’s exhibitions.
• [^4]: Read more about censorship in our article about anonymous artists.

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