Oldrich Kulhanek - Graphics
Oldrich Kulhanek (26 February 1940 – 28 January 2013) was a Czech painter, graphic designer, illustrator, stage designer and pedagogue. Kulhánek created the design for the current Czech banknotes and postage stamps.Kulhánek was born in Prague. Beginning in 1958, he studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, in the atelier of Karel Svolinský. He graduated in 1964, with the cycles of illustrations to the poetry of Vladimír Holan and Christian Morgenstern (The Gallows Songs).In 1971 he was arrested by the StB (the Czechoslovak Secret Police) and imprisoned for “defamation of the allied socialist states”. In a graphic cycle created from 1968 to 1971, he included “a distorted portrait of Joseph Stalin, perforated five-pointed red stars or joyful faces of socialist workers turned into a hideous grin”.
