Josef Skupa (16 January 1892 in
Strakonice
Strakonice (; german: Strakonitz) is a town in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 22,000 inhabitants.
Administrative parts
Strakonice is made up of town parts of Strakonice I and Strakonice II, and villages of Dražejov, ...
– 8 January 1957 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
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
puppeteer
A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, called a puppet, to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from ...
.
He studied 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 d ...
,
and worked as stage designer in the
Plzeň
Plzeň (; German and English: Pilsen, in German ) is a city in the Czech Republic. About west of Prague in western Bohemia, it is the Statutory city (Czech Republic), fourth most populous city in the Czech Republic with about 169,000 inhabita ...
City Theatre, also as designer in
Skoda Engineering Works.
[
In year 1919 and 1926, respectively, he created his most famous puppets: comical father ''Spejbl'' and his rascal son ''Hurvínek''. In 1930 he set up the first modern professional puppet theatre.][ In 1933 he became the president of the International Puppetry Association UNIMA.][
During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, Skupa performed satiric and allegorical puppet plays on hundreds of stages all over Czechoslovakia. After 1945, he moved his theatre to Prague. He was praised as an official "national artist" during the Communist regime but he was criticised for his lack of political engagement. Therefore, Skupa focused on plays for children, and ]mime
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than ASCII, as well as attachments of audio, video, images, and application programs. Message ...
with puppets for adults. He also performed abroad (Great Britain, Poland, France, Hungary, USSR).[
]
References
External links
Official webpage of Theatre of Spejbl and Hurvinek
1892 births
1957 deaths
People from Strakonice
Czech puppeteers
UNIMA presidents
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