Biography

Jiri Kolar, Czech artist and writer (born Sept. 24, 1914, Protivin, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary—died Aug. 11, 2002, Prague, Czech Rep.), excelled in both poetry and collage, but his works embodied independence and originality at a time when communist cultural repression made such qualities liabilities, and he suffered oppression and imprisonment in his native country. Kolar began exhibiting his art in 1937 and published his first poetry collection, Birth Certificate, in 1941. Communist authorities banned his writing in 1949 and again in the 1960s, and he was imprisoned for nine months in the early 1950s. Beginning in the early 1960s, Kolar focused more on visual art and became increasing experimental, eventually earning a place as one of the masters of the collage form.