Kája Saudek Comics Museum

Great comic-book artists like R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman and Stan Lee have long known the genre is capable of more than eliciting laughter. Add to that list Kája Saudek, the Czech artist who was recently honored with the opening of a museum dedicated to his work. In keeping with the unconventional nature of the artist himself, it is located above a rock club.

The Kája Saudek Comics Museum opened its doors late last year, becoming the first museum dedicated to the work of Saudek, an iconic graphic artist who has produced nearly two dozen comic collections and several films since beginning his career in the 1960s. The older brother of photographer Jan Saudek, Kája achieved wide notoriety for his work during the 1960s and again following the collapse of communism, after decades of officially imposed obscurity. Tragically, Saudek suffered a choking accident in 2006 and has been in a coma ever since.

Public enthusiasm for Saudek's work has not abated, however, even as the artist has put down his brush. Museum Director Miloš Gregor says the roots of the museum stretch back three years, when Arnošt Kuchař, owner of the club Batalion, decided that instead of simply remodeling the club as it had before its reconstruction, he would instead create a shrine to one of his favorite artists. He contacted Saudek's daughter, artist Berenika Saudková, who agreed to repaint the club's interior with murals based on her father's drawings. This got her and Gregor thinking about the possibility of a museum devoted completely to Saudek's work.

"It's not usual that there is a museum completely dedicated to comics, [let alone] only one artist," Saudková says. "Especially in post-communist countries, there are not many remarkable characters like Kája Saudek, who means so much, and not just for Czech comics."

After three years of planning, Saudková and graphic designer Marcel Musil chose about 100 pieces to display from the thousands in Saudek's collection. The focus of the museum's collection is Saudek's comics and movie posters, but visitors can also find oil paintings and photos of the Saudek family.

"We tried to show the main part of his art, but also the nontraditional pieces he made," Gregor says.

The opening of the museum shows Saudek is finally getting some of the recognition he has long deserved. Gregor says that, as an artist out of step with his time toiling under the communist regime, Saudek in many ways combined his local social situation with the cultural fermentation that was taking place in the United States in the 1960s.

"Kája Saudek is an extraordinarily inventive man who, under totalitarian oppression, created his own world of beauty. Saudek's world resembled the United States. In the 1960s, when the political climate in former Czechoslovakia started liberalizing, Saudek's talent could flourish publicly in the form of numerous illustrations, posters, films, and, most importantly, comics," he says. "But then came restrictions, because people loved his art, his dreams of the United States. He perfectly combines the American dream with the cruel reality of communist regime, that's why he's so original all over the world. In our country he is known as the uncrowned king of comics and if you see his art, you understand."

Gregor says the museum's collection will rotate, to feature as many Saudek pieces as possible over time. He also plans to expand the museum to include an "adults only" room featuring Saudek's erotic artwork. But for now,he is just focusing on making the museum experience as great as they can.

"We're trying to give our best service to visitors - give them all the interesting information, and the best drinks in the Batalion club, which is right below the museum," Gregor says.

So if you like your comics racy, make a trip to the Kája Saudek Comics Museum and then stop in at Batalion for a stiff cocktail. Kája himself wouldn't have it any other way.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com