Jiří Trnka

Jiří Trnka (Plzeň, 1912 – Prague, 1969) was a Czech illustrator, set designer and director of animated films. He is best known for his puppet animation, which he began in 1946, but his long career as an illustrator of children's books was just as important and earned him the Hans Christian Andersen illustrator award in 1968. His name became linked to what came to be called the Czech style of animation.

He grew up in Plzeň in a middle-class family. His father was a plumber and his mother a dressmaker, yet both stayed close to their peasant roots and valued woodwork. As a boy he carved wooden puppets and staged small shows for friends. He studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague from 1929 to 1935, working in a printmaking workshop to pay for his studies. His first illustrated book appeared in 1937, and over his lifetime he illustrated around 130 works, mostly folk tales, including those of the Brothers Grimm and Andersen, and the Micha bear stories.

After the Second World War he co-founded the animation studio Bratři v Triku with Eduard Hofman and Jiří Brdečka. His early short cartoons brought him international attention, but he felt uneasy with a method that, in his view, placed too many intermediaries between the artist and the work. In 1946 he began experimenting with animated puppets, and his first feature of this kind, The Czech Year, came in 1947. His films, many aimed at adults and often drawing on Czech and foreign literature, mix humour, legend and social criticism. His short The Hand (1965) is widely regarded as his most personal work. His legacy lives on in puppet animation across Central Europe and in Kihachirō Kawamoto, who was his pupil.