Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934) is a retired<ref name= AN7 Czech filmmaker, animator, writer, playwright and artist. He draws and makes free graphics, collage, ceramics, tactile objects and assemblages.Nádvorníková A, in: NEČVU, Dodatky, 2006, s. 769 In the early 1960s, he explored informel, which later became an important part of the visual form of his animated films.Interview With Jan Švankmajer, Karolína Bartošová, Loutkář 1, 2016, p. 3-8 He is a leading representative of late Czech surrealism. In his film work, he created an unmistakable and quite specific style, determined primarily by a compulsively unorthodox combination of externally disparate elements. The anti-artistic nature of this process, based on collage or assemblage, functions as a meaning-making factor.František Dryje, in: Simeona Hošková, Květa Otcovská (eds.), Jan Švankmajer, Transmutace smyslů / Transmutation of senses, 1994, pp. 68-69 The author himself claims that the intersubjective communication between him and the viewer works only through evoked associations, and his films fulfil their subversive mission only when, even in the most fantastic moments, they look like a record of reality.Jan Švankmajer, Film, in: Jídlo / Food, 2004, p. 95 Some of the works he created together with his wife Eva Švankmajerová.Slovník českých a slovenských výtvarných umělců 1950–2006 (XVII. Šte – Tich), 2006, pp. 182-184
Life and films Jan Švankmajer was born in Prague on 4 September 1934. His father was a window dresser and his mother a seamstress. His childhood was profoundly influenced by a home puppet theatre,Jan Švankmajer, in: Krčálová M, Sklizeň / Harvest, 2022, p. 24 which he received as a nine-year-old boy for Christmas and gradually made his own puppets and painted the sets. Švankmajer admits that since then, puppets have been firmly embedded in his mental morphology, and he always resorts to them when he feels threatened by the reality of the outside world.Jan Švankmajer, in: F. Dryje, ed., Síla imaginace / Power of imagination, 2001, p. 35 He sees them not only in the context of theatre, but as a ritual symbol used in magic. The ludic principle on which Švankmajer's work is based has its roots in his childhood.Jan Švankmajer, in: Jídlo / Food, 2004, p. 17
In 1950-1954, he graduated in scenography at the Higher School of Art Industry in Prague, under Prof. Richard Lander, where he designed and made puppets and sets.Jan Švankmajer, Cesty spasení / Paths of salvation, 2018, p. 194 His classmates were Aleš Veselý and photographer Jan Svoboda. He then studied directing and stage design at the Department of Puppets at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (1954-1958), where Lander moved to as a teacher at that time. Even during the most rigid Stalinist regime, the atmosphere at the school was liberal and forbidden books on French modern art circulated among the students, brought by the painting teacher Karel Tondl.Bertrand Schmitt, in: František Dryje, Bertrand Schmitt (eds.), 2012, p. 64 His classmate and friend was the later film director Juraj Herz. At the end of his studies, he took part in a sightseeing trip to Poland, where he saw reproductions of Paul Klee's works for the first time.
During his studies, he staged the folk puppeteers' play Don Šajn (Don Juan) at the then Small Theatre D 34 (1957-1958), led by Emil František Burian. In addition to D 34 theatre, he attended the Liberated Theatre and became acquainted with the works of the Russian avant-garde (Mejerhold, Eisenstein).Bertrand Schmitt, in: František Dryje, Bertrand Schmitt (eds.), 2012, p. 65 In his graduation performance (C. Gozzi, The King Stag) he used a combination of puppets with live actors in masks. Soon after graduation in 1958, he participated as a puppeteer in Radok's short film Johannes Doctor Faust, inspired by folk puppeteers. During the filming he met composer Zdeněk Liška, cinematographer Svatopluk Malý and designer Vlastimil Beneš. He briefly worked as a director and designer at the State Puppet Theatre in Liberec (the predecessor of Studio Ypsilon).Bertrand Schmitt, in: František Dryje, Bertrand Schmitt (eds.), 2012, p. 66 In 1958-1960, he completed his compulsory military service in Mariánské Lázně, where he drew and painted intensively (Men, pen, watercolour on pressed paper, 1959).
After returning from the army in 1960, he founded the group Theatre of Masks, which belonged to the Semafor theatre. During the preparation of the first production of Starched Heads, he met Eva Dvořáková, whom he later married. Other productions of the Theatre of Masks were Johannes Doctor Faust, The Collector of Shadows, Circus Sucric. In 1962 he exhibited his drawings in the corridor of the Semafor and Vlastimil Beneš and Zbyněk Sekal, who visited the exhibition, invited him to join the Máj 57 group. He took part in the fourth exhibition of the Máj group in Poděbrady (1961), which was banned after three days, and then exhibited with the members of the group until the end of the 1960s.Simeona Hošková, Květa Otcovská (eds.), Jan Švankmajer, Transmutace smyslů / Transmutation of senses, 1994, p. 99
The avant-garde Cinema of Masks did not fit Semafor's profile as a musical stage. In 1962, Jiří Suchý closed it down, but Emil Radok facilitated the engagement of the entire group of the Theatre of Masks in Magician's Lantern. In this year Jan Švankmajer made his first trip to Paris. In 1963, his daughter Veronika was born. After leaving Semafor, he worked until 1964 as director and head of the Black light theatre company at Magician's Lantern. He directed two performances for the Variations programmes and later also externally for the Magic Circus, The Lost Fairy Tale. At the same time, together with Emil Radok, he was making up scripts for future films.Švankmajer J, 2001, pp. 118-120
In 1964, he made his first short film, The Last Trick, based on the principles of black theatre. It features elements typical of all his subsequent work, such as the dynamic use of montage and the juxtaposition of live actors with animated objects. The film was successful abroad, and in the following years Švankmajer was allowed to make short films combining puppetry, animation and elements of live-action. In his early films, composed as short grotesques, black humour and peculiarly interpreted poetics of folk puppet plays prevail.Dryje F, in: Eva Švankmajerová, Jan Švankmajer, Anima, animus, animation, 1997, p. 10-12 In the second film from 1964, Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasia in G minor, the visual component is a kind of mannerist informel with a recognizable influence of surrealist photographs by Emila Medková.Jan Švankmajer, in: Eva Švankmajerová, Jan Švankmajer, Anima, animus, animace, 1997, p. 33 In 1965, he made the film Spiel mit steinen (Playing with Stones) practically alone, with the help of Eva Švankmajerová and cinematographer Petr Puluj in Austria. He tried out various animation techniques, later used, for example, in the film Dimensions of Dialogue. For the Expo 67 competition in Montreal, he made a short film Man and TechniqueBertrand Schmitt, in: František Dryje, Bertrand Schmitt (eds.), 2012, p. 82 and participated in the film Digits by Pavel Procházka. In 1968 the Švankmajer family moved to the house No. 97/5 in Nový svět (Hradčany).Bertrand Schmitt, in: František Dryje, Bertrand Schmitt (eds.), 2012, p. 81
In 1968, he signed the manifesto The Two Thousand Words. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the whole family emigrated to Austria at the instigation of Eva Švankmajerová. Here he made his second film in an Austrian production in the studio of Peter Puluj (Picknick mit Weissmann). In 1968, he received the Max Ernst Prize at the Oberhausen Film Festival for his film Historia naturae. In 1969 the family decided to return to Czechoslovakia. In 1970 he teamed up with Vratislav Effenberger and together with Eva Švankmajerová they became members of the Surrealist Group in Czechoslovakia.Dryje F: Jiný zrak, in: Simeona Hošková, Květa Otcovská (eds.), Jan Švankmajer, Transmutace smyslů / Transmutation of senses, 1994, p. 9 Between 1971 and 1989 they contributed to samizdat edited anthologies Le-La and catalogues (Open Game, Sphere of Dream, Transformations of Humour, Imaginative Spaces, Opposite of the Mirror).Dagmar Magincová (ed.), 1997, p. 171 After 1989 to the first and only issue of the anthology Gambra and then to the magazine Analogon.
During the short period up to 1970 Švankmajer still managed to make the "Kafkaesque" allegorical short films The Garden, The Apartment and Silent Week in the House, the morbid Ossuary and the "puppet" film Don Šajn (1970), in which marionettes are replaced by live actors who have wires and guide strings attached to their papier-mâché heads, symbolizing the theme of human manipulation and the limitations of individual freedom.Stanislav Ulver, in: F. Dryje, ed., Síla imaginace / The Power of Imagination, 2001, p. 36 After the advent of the normalisation regime, Švankmajer's creative work was hampered by censorship and his short films The Garden and The Apartment ended up in the vault. In 1972, as a volunteer, he underwent an experiment with intravenous administration of LSD at the Military Hospital in Prague. The experiment had a devastating effect on him, with anxiety statesBertrand Schmitt, in: František Dryje, Bertrand Schmitt (eds.), 2012, p. 128 that he still recalls in his work 30 years later.Jan Švankmajer, Out of my head, The Guardian, 2001Jan Švankmajer, Droga / Drug, in: Jídlo / Food, 2004, pp. 139-141
In 1972-1979 he was banned from filming because he refused to make compromise on the post-production of his film The Castle of Otranto, based on a gothic novel by H. Walpole.Martin Stejskal, in: Eva Švankmajerová, Jan Švankmajer, Anima, animus, animace, 1997, p. 106 In 1973-1980 he worked as a production designer and film trick maker at Barrandov Studios.Simeona Hošková, Květa Otcovská (eds.), Jan Švankmajer, Transmutace smyslů / Transmutation of senses, 1994, p. 100 In 1975 his son Václav was born. In the 1970s, Jan Švankmajer worked as a stage designer at the Theatre on the Balustrade, the Večerní Brno Theatre, and especially at The Drama Club, where he was invited by Jaroslav Vostrý (Candide, The Educator, Crackle on the Lagoon, The Golden Carriage). Eva Švankmajerová participated in the performances as a costume designer and stage designer. Since 1976 he and his wife Eva have been creating ceramics under the joint pseudonym Kostelec.Eva Švankmajerová, in: Simeona Hošková, Květa Otcovská (eds.), Jan Švankmajer, Transmutace smyslů / Transmutation of senses, 1994, pp. 60–61
As a trick designer and production designer in Barrandov Studios, he teamed up on the films of Oldřich Lipský (Dinner for Adele, 1977, The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians, 1981) and Juraj Herz (The Ninth Heart, 1978, Upír z Feratu (The Vampire of Ferat), 1981). At the end of his persecution, he filmed two of Poe's short stories, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope, using themes from the work of Villiers de l'Isle Adam. In 1981 Jan and Eva Švankmajer bought a dilapidated castle in Horní Stankov, where they wanted to set up a ceramics workshop. Since then, they have been gradually reconstructing the castle and transforming it into a surreal Cabinet of Curiosities, consisting of their own artefacts and various collections of art and natural objects. Švankmajer's collecting is a form of self-therapy,Dryje F: Jiný zrak, in: Simeona Hošková, Květa Otcovská (eds.), Jan Švankmajer, Transmutace smyslů / Transmutation of senses, 1994, s. 10 and in addition to found or purchased objects, it includes art from the natural peoples of Africa and Polynesia.