Life with book illustration
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Václav Kabát, born on 8 April 1932 in Prague, is a leading Czech book illustrator. He was a member of the Scouts since 1945 and for about two years after the communist coup he was still active in an unofficial scout troop. In 1947-1951 he attended the State Graphic School in Prague, then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (1951-1956) in the studio of Vladimír Pukl. After his studies he worked as a freelance artist. At first he made a living with cartoons and applied graphics (making signs, diplomas and covers), later he established himself as a book illustrator. He worked with several publishing houses, but most of all with the children’s literature publishing house Albatros. Shortly after 21 August 1968, before the censorship began to fully function again, he drew several jokes against the invasion for the press. Because of the censorship, he did not have access to scarce equipment for artists, such as special furniture, for a long time during the normalisation. He continued to illustrate books even during the time of the filming, in 2022, and in previous years he had illustrated Tales from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia and The Fairy Tales of Božena Němcová.
