©ČTK, Prag
Josef Čapek was born on March 23, 1887 as the son of a country doctor in Hronov (Northern Bohemia). After attending the School of Industrial Art in Vrchlabí, he studied at the School of Applied Arts in Prague from 1904-1910. 1907 he publishes short prose plays, while working as a stage designer at the Prague theater "Na Vinohradech". From 1910 to 1911 he goes on a Study trip to Paris with his brother, the writer Karel Čapek.
In 1911 he was one of the co-founders of the "Skupina výtvarných umělců" (Group of Visual Artists) and published the art magazine "Umělecký měsíčník" (Monthly for Art). In 1918 he tried in the group "Tvrdošíjní" (The Stubborn) to counteract the loss of importance of Cubism after the First World War. In the mid-1920s, Čapek turned to socially critical topics and worked as an art critic and editor. In 1931 he received the ČSR Literature Prize for his novel "Im Schatten des Fernkrauts". At the end of the 1930s, political caricatures against the National Socialists were made. In autumn 1939 he was awarded a Czech art prize.
On September 1, 1939, Josef Čapek was arrested by the Gestapo in Želiv and taken to the Pankrác prison in Prague. After a week he was transferred to Dachau, from there on September 26, 1939 to Buchenwald and in June 1942 to Sachsenhausen. From there he was transported to Bergen-Belsen on February 25, 1945. Josef Čapek died there of typhus in the first days of April. Poems and drawings from the camps in Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen have been preserved.
