

Josef Čapek was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.
Čapek was born in Hronov, Bohemia (Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic) in 1887. First a painter of the Cubist school, he later developed his own playful, minimalist 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. As a cartoonist, he worked for Lidové Noviny, a newspaper based in Prague. Due to his critical attitude towards national socialism and Adolf Hitler, he was arrested after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. He wrote Poems from a Concentration Camp in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where he died in 1945. In June 1945 Rudolf Margolius, accompanied by Čapek's wife Jarmila Čapková, went to Bergen-Belsen to search for him. His remains were never found. In 1948 the court officially set the date of his death as 30 April 1947, the day which he did not survive being 30.
His illustrated stories Povídání o Pejskovi a Kočičce (English translation as The Adventures of Puss and Pup) are considered classics of Czech children's literature.
More Illustrations in Book: I Had a Dog and a Cat (View all 41)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 22 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 40 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 39 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 05 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 38 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 19 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 02 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 11 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 33 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 08 (1928)
More Illustrations in Book: I Had a Dog and a Cat (View all 41)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 22 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 40 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 39 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 05 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 38 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 19 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 02 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 11 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 33 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 08 (1928)

I Had a Dog and a Cat Pl 14 (1928)
