Adolf Hoffmeister (15 August 1902 – 24 July 1973) was a Czechoslovak illustrator, caricaturist, painter, writer, poet, journalist, politician, diplomat and traveler.
Life and career
Early life
He was born in Prague, to the family of a Prague lawyer. He grew up in a cultivated intellectual environment, his uncle was the composer and educator Karel Hoffmeister.
In the years 1912–1921, he studied at the Real Gymnasium school in Křemencova Street in Prague, where most of the future members of the avant-garde group
Devětsil
The Devětsil () was an association of Czech avant-garde artists, founded in 1920 in Prague. From 1923 on there was also an active group in Brno. The movement discontinued its activities in 1930 (1927 in Brno).
Founded as U. S. Devětsil (Umělec ...
met. When Devětsil was founded on October 5, 1920, Adolf Hoffmeister became its youngest member and at the same time an executive. After graduating, he continued his studies at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague, which he completed in 1925 by obtaining a doctorate. In the summer semester of 1924 he studied Egyptology at the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
.
From 1917 he started writing poems, which he first published in magazines under various pseudonyms, he devoted himself to drawing and linocut. In 1922 he published the first book of poems and prose, participated in seventeen works at the spring exhibition Devětsil and in the same year traveled to Paris. He met artists such as
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to eac ...
and Ossip Zadkin. He left the group Devětsil and joined a group of artists named the "New Group". In the following period, he devoted himself to caricatures, which he sent to ''
Lidové noviny
''Lidové noviny'' (''People's News'', or ''The People's Newspaper'', ) is a daily newspaper published in Prague, the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily still in print, and a newspaper of record.
Inter-war career
After graduating from law school, he regularly traveled abroad and worked as a correspondent for many magazines. After graduating from law school, he regularly traveled abroad and worked as a correspondent for many magazines. In addition to information about cultural events, he also sent his own drawing portraits of personalities with whom he met in person. In 1926 he published the novel The ''Tropic of Capricorn'' and a collection of poems The ''Alphabet of Love''. He also was the editor of the
Pestrý týden
Pestrý týden was a Czech illustrated weekly magazine published from 2 November 1926 to 28 April 1945, during the First and Second Czechoslovak Republics and during the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. It helped establish top photo-reporters ...
magazine.
In 1927 he had his first solo exhibition in the Odeon exhibition hall. In April 1927, the poet
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (, ; rus, Влади́мир Влади́мирович Маяко́вский, , vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ məjɪˈkofskʲɪj, Ru-Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.ogg, links=y; – 14 Apr ...
lived with him during his stay in Prague. Together with Nezval, he accompanied the French poet
Philippe Soupault
Philippe Soupault (2 August 1897 – 12 March 1990) was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He was active in Dadaism and later was instrumental in founding the Surrealist movement with André Breton. Soupault in ...
and publisher Léon Pierre-Quint in Prague. Miroslava Holzbachová performed Hoffmeister's ballet ''Park'' to the music of Jaroslav Ježek in Umělecká beseda and his comedy premiered at the Osvobozené divadlo, ''The bride'' directed by Jindřich Honzl. The photographer of the performance was Jaroslav Rössler. Hoffmeister's permanent collaboration with Voskovec, Werich and Ježek began, for which he prepared programs and posters and drew numerous caricatures.
In 1928 he had his first solo exhibition in Paris (''Visages par Adolf Hoffmeister'') at the ''Galerie d'Art Contemporain'' and a rerun of this exhibition at the ''Galerie l'Epoque'' in Brussels. The successful exhibition opened the possibility for him to cooperate with the foreign press, especially with the newspaper ''L'Intransigeant.'' He became a member of the committee of the
PEN club
PEN International (known as International PEN until 2010) is a worldwide association of writers, founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere. The association has autonomous Internation ...
in Prague.
From 1929 he was a member of the progressive organization of Czech intellectuals, the Left Front.
In 1930, the publisher
Otakar Storch-Marien
Otakar is a masculine Czech given name of Germanic origin (cf. Audovacar). Notable people with the name include:
*Otakar Batlička (1895–1942), Czech adventurer, journalist, ham radio operator, member of Czech Nazi resistance group in World War ...
sent him on trips around Europe to interview important personalities of European culture and illustrate them with his caricatures. Hoffmeister met with
Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...
,
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...
,
Paul Valéry
Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry (; 30 October 1871 – 20 July 1945) was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), his interests included aphorisms on art, history, letters, mus ...
, Georg Grosz, G.K. Chsterton etc. The book of interviews ''Write As You Hear'' was published in 1931.
He became one of the artists of the so-called
Mánes Union of Fine Arts
The Mánes Association of Fine Artists ( or ''S.V.U.''; commonly abbreviated as ''Manes'') was an artists' association and exhibition society founded in 1887 in Prague and named after painter Josef Mánes.
The Manes was significant for its inte ...
, when they were offered full artistic freedom. H e traveled with Bedřich Feuerstein to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and met many cultural figures such as
Anatoly Lunacharsky
Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Лунача́рский) (born Anatoly Aleksandrovich Antonov, – 26 December 1933) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and the first Bolshevik Soviet People ...
Hannes Meyer
Hans Emil "Hannes" Meyer (18 November 1889 – 19 July 1954) was a Swiss architect and second director of the Bauhaus Dessau from 1928 to 1930.
Early life
Meyer was born in Basel, Switzerland, trained as a mason, and practiced as an architect ...
and on his way back in Leningrad with
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
and
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxle ...
.
Having been in the 30s in Germany and working with the satirical magazine ''
Simplicissimus
:''Simplicissimus is also a name for the 1668 novel Simplicius Simplicissimus and its protagonist.''
''Simplicissimus'' () was a satirical German weekly magazine, headquartered in Munich, and founded by Albert Langen in April 1896. It continue ...
,'' the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
turned the line of the magazine in to an entertainment magazine. Hoffmeister participated in the publishing of the anti-fascist weekly "Simplicus", then "Simpl" in Prague, together with German emigrants such as
John Heartfield
John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld; 19 June 1891 – 26 April 1968) was a 20th century German visual artist who pioneered the use of art as a political weapon. Some of his most famous photomontages were anti-Nazi and anti-fascist statements. ...
. He traveled to Spain while the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
was about to accur and became a member of the Committee of Aid for Democratic Spain.
He participated in the congress of the PEN club in Prague and the activities of the Association of Czechoslovak Writers.
At the beginning of 1939, his caricatures were exhibited in Topič's salon at the posthumous exhibition of
Karel Čapek
Karel Čapek (; 9 January 1890 – 25 December 1938) was a Czech writer, playwright and critic. He has become best known for his science fiction, including his novel '' War with the Newts'' (1936) and play '' R.U.R.'' (''Rossum's Universal ...
and at the exhibition of portraits of members of SVU Mánes.
World War II and emigration
Two days after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by German troops and the proclamation of the Protectorate, Hoffmeister received an invitation to France on March 18, 1939, which was arranged by
Louis Aragon
Louis Aragon (, , 3 October 1897 – 24 December 1982) was a French poet who was one of the leading voices of the surrealist movement in France. He co-founded with André Breton and Philippe Soupault the surrealist review ''Littérature''. He ...
. He received an extraordinary French visa and fled to Paris on April 23.
There he established contacts with resistance organizations and with the help of the French communists founded the ''Maison de la Culture Tchécoslovaque.'' In September 1939, after the occupation of eastern Poland by Soviet troops, he was arrested and charged on the basis of anonymous allegations together with many other citizens of Czechoslovakia ''as'' an agent of Moscow''.''
In January 1941, with the help of Jan Werich and Jiří Voskovec, he crossed
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.
to New York. He shortly traveled to Hollywood but then returned to New York.
In 1943 he took part in the ''Art in Exile'' exhibition at the New York Public Library and, together with Antonín Pelc, had an exhibition of political cartoons at the Museum of Modern Art, which was opened by
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš (; 28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948) was a Czech politician and statesman who served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938, and again from 1945 to 1948. He also led the Czechoslovak government-in-exile 1939 to 194 ...
.
Return to Czechoslovakia
In June 1945, he was invited by the Minister of Information Václav Kopecký to return to Czechoslovakia. Hoffmeister joined the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
and in November 1945 became the head of 6th Department of the Ministry of Information and Education, where he was in charge of foreign cultural relations. He held this position until March 1948.
As a member of the Czechoslovak delegation, he participated in the First General Assembly of
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
and participated in the preparation of the exhibition ''Art tchécoslovaque 1938–1946'' in Paris. The French government awarded him the Order of the Legion of Honor.
In February 1948, he became chairman of the action committee of the Union of Czechoslovak Artists. In March, he led a Czechoslovak delegation to an international conference on freedom of information in Geneva. He received an offer from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enter the diplomatic service and in June he was appointed Czechoslovak ambassador to Paris.
In 1955 he was sent to Beijing and Shanghai as the commissioner of the cultural part of the exhibition ''Ten Years of Building Czechoslovakia'' and included his experiences in the 2nd edition of the book ''Postcards from China''. In the book ''One Hundred Years of Czech Caricature'', he was the first art historian to write the history of this genre.
On May 1, 1960, Adolf Hoffmeister was awarded the Order of the Republic. He was involved in favor of the imprisoned Laco Novomeský, who was charged with bourgeois nationalism but received an amnesty in 1960.
Later life
After the crushing of the Prague Spring, he left his home again for two years and was a professor at the Université de Vincennes (
University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis
Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis (french: Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) is a public university in Paris, France. Once part of the historic University of Paris, it is now an autonomous public institution.
It is one of the th ...
), but in 1970 he returned to Prague. In 1970–1972 he was active again as a professor at the
Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague
The Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (AAAD, cs, Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová v Praze, abbreviated VŠUP, also known as UMPRUM) is a public university located in Prague, Czech Republic. The university offers the study ...
in Prague. In 1970, He was summoned for inspection at the Central Committee of the Communist Party and subsequently expelled from the Communist Party and from all public, publishing and exhibition activities. During the period of normalization, he was disqualified as a non-person and as a "Salon Communist". Adolf Hoffmeister died of a heart attack on July 24, 1973 in his cottage at Říčky.