Josef Čapek (IPA: [ˈjozɛf ˈʧapɛk]) (March 23,1887 – 1945), Czech artist. Gained highest esteem as a painter, but was also noted a writer and poet. Initial inventor of the word robot (which was introduced into the literature by his brother Karel).
Short biography
He was born in Hronov, Bohemia (Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic) in 1887. First a painter of the Cubist school, he later developed his own playful primitive style. He collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories; on his own he wrote the utopian play Land of Many Names and several novels, as well as critical essays in which he argued for the art of the unconscious, of children and of 'savages'. He was named by his brother as the true inventor of the term robot [1]. As a cartoonist, he worked for Lidové Noviny, a newspaper based in Prague. Due to his critical attitude towards Nazism and Adolf Hitler, he was arrested after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He wrote Poems from a Concentration Camp in the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen, where he died in 1945. His illustrated stories about 'Pejsek a Kočička' ('Doggie and Pussycat') are considered classics of Czech children's literature.
Selection of his literary works
- Lelio, 1917
- Stín kapradiny, 1930, novel
- Kulhavý poutník, essays, 1936
- Land of Many Names
- Básně z koncentračního tabora (Poems from Concentration Camp), published posthumously 1946
- Adam Stvořitel (Adam the Creator) - with Karel Čapek
- Dášeňka, čili život štěněte (Dashenka, or the life of a Puppy) - with Karel Čapek, illustrated by Josef
