Oldřich Kulhánek

Oldřich Kulhánek (1940-2013) studied graphic design at the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Prague in the late 1950s and early 1960s under Professor Karel Svolinský. He then worked as a painter, graphic designer and illustrator. After 1968, he was arrested by the StB and accused of defaming the representatives of communist countries with his graphic letters with the face of Stalin. He spent a month in prison and was unable to exhibit in Czechoslovakia until the Velvet Revolution. Despite this, he continued to work, illustrating books and several of his works were exported behind the Iron Curtain. Kulhánek's early collages and later prints are based on surrealism, and the central theme of his work is man and his birth and mortality, desires and fears. In the 1990s, he designed the current form of Czech banknotes. His works are represented in several international galleries.