Válka s Mloky – Čapek Karel (2023)

The cult illustrated edition of the novel War with the Newts, where the genius of the world-renowned writer meets the originality of one of the most distinctive and acclaimed German painters of the second half of the 20th century. While Karel Čapek and his work need no introduction, the renowned artist and graphic designer Hans Ticha, who illustrated nearly a hundred books and whose most famous work is indeed the illustrations for Čapek's War with the Newts from 1987, is practically unknown in our country, despite the fact that this 'only pop art artist from East Germany' (or indeed the Eastern Bloc) is originally from Bohemia. One of the most original German illustrators, whose unmistakable style shows influences of German Bauhaus and Russian avant-garde alongside pop art, was born in 1940 in Děčín. Our illustrated edition is supplemented by an afterword that maps the life and work of this remarkable, still almost unknown artist with Czech-German roots. Ticha has a special bond with War with the Newts. When the book was first published in East Germany in 1956, it captivated the future famous painter, then still a high school student, so much that he decided he would illustrate it. However, he had to wait more than three decades to fulfill his wish.