Jaromír Zápal (March 18, 1923 in

Brandýs nad Orlicí Brandýs nad Orlicí (; german: Brandeis an der Adler) is a town in Ústí nad Orlicí District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 1,300 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban m ...

– December 5, 1984 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

) was a Czechoslovak illustrator, painter and writer. He is mainly known as an illustrator of children books. Zápal studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (''Vysoká škola uměleckoprůmyslová'') in

. Later he worked as a graphics art editor for publishing houses ''Státní nakladatelství dětské knihy'' (SNDK), which in 1969 became ''Albatros, publishers for children and youth'', i. e. specializing on children and youth literature. Among his most known works are the rendition of

Winnie the Pooh Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard. The first collection of stories about the character w ...

(first published in 1958) and illustrations for the Neznaika trilogy by Nikolai Nosov (first published in 1957, 1961 and 1976). Zápal also wrote and illustrated several child books (the last being published posthumously in 1986).

Literature

* František Holešovský, Blanka Stehlíková, Luboš Hlaváček: ''Čeští ilustrátoři v současné knize pro děti a mládež'' (''Czech illustrators in contemporary literature for children and the youth''), Albatros, Prague, 1989.

External links

Short biography with selection of works
(in Czech)
Czech translation of Neznaika trilogy online, complete with illustrations by Zápal
!-- if dead try http://medvidek.us/ikke/knihy/Neznalek/ There may be other webs with the texts. --> {{DEFAULTSORT:Zapal, Jaromir 1923 births 1984 deaths Czechoslovak illustrators