“I don’t regret becoming a doctor. I think that in the end it was the correct choice. But medicine is a subject that really serves a purpose. But I admit that I deliberated for a long time. The war was over, and I was thinking what next. To earn my living as a freelance painter, that was really difficult. It occurred to me I might find a way into the animated film industry. I wrote to Jiří Trnka and visited him. He wasn’t quite so famous yet. He received me in a very friendly manner. But he dissuaded me from my proposal. He said that it’s a largely mechanical job and that I wouldn’t enjoy it. It wasn’t until later that I realised that if you want to do art full-time, you can’t deliberate, you have to just know it straight off.”
“We had one excellent teacher, who deserves a mention - Professor Šofr, a mathematician. He came from Rychnov nad Kněžnou. He was a classmate of Karel Poláček [a famous Czech writer - trans.]. He was actually the inspiration for the character of Pepek Zilvar from the orphanage in the book Bylo nás pět [We Were Five]. Because Šofr came from a very poor family. He was a great aficionado of theatre, but also a football fan. We didn’t know if he couldn’t speak German, or if he was just acting ignorant in such a brilliant way.”
“At that time they started founding and opening the medical faculty here. Before the faculty started operating, before there were lectures, professors Fingerland and Hromada and my drawing skills gave me access to the institute of anatomy. Because there weren’t any study aids back then. Professor Hromada gave me a humerus to draw. When I brought it the next day, he said: ‘I’ll take you on!’ With a group of several other people who had the necessary skills we copied out pictures from compendiums because there were no materials at hand. We were basically creating teaching posters. We also knew ahead of time what was to be lectured. We copied the pictures from the compendiums to large formats.”
Prof. MUDr. Rudolf Malec was born on 25 February 1924. He is an eminent neurosurgeon from Hradec Králové. He worked in the local university hospital, from 1986 he held the position of clinic director. He took an active role in innovating surgical procedures and implementing new methods in neurotraumatology at the intensive care unit. He also took an interest in art, he illustrated specialised literature, but he also created a unique portrait gallery of famous Hradec figures. His whole life is connected to the east Bohemian city of Hradec Králové. His father owned a leather shop. After graduating from Rašín State Czechoslovak Grammar School he worked at a pharmacy in Nový Bydžov until the end of the war. In 1945 he began studying at the newly founded Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králové. He chose to specialise in neurosurgery. In 1952 the first Czechoslovak neurosurgery clinic was opened in Hradec Králové. The clinic’s first director was Prof. MUDr. Rudolf Petr. He worked very closely with Rudolf Malec, who then took over the directorship in 1986. Malec has published close to one hundred-and-fifty medical research articles. In his free time he has always devoted himself to drawing and graphic design. He has illustrated all kinds of publications, but he has also created a unique portrait gallery of Hradec personalities. During his life he has had several large exhibitions - in Nový Bydžov, Hradec Králové, Neratovice, or at the Ministry of Agriculture in Prague. Rudolf Malec passed away on November, the 5th, 2019.
