Milada Marešová

Milada Marešová around 1930

Milada Marešová (born November 16, 1901 in Prague ; † February 19, 1987 there ) was a Czech artist and illustrator. After 1939 she took part in the design of the illegal magazine V boj , which was related to the resistance group Obrana národa fighting against the occupation of the country by the Third Reich , for which she was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

Life

Milada Marešová studied at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design and then with Vojtěch Hynais at the Academy of Fine Arts , both in Prague; she stayed to study in Paris and also in Berlin, where she studied in 1923 with František Kupka . Marešová, who painted, drew and illustrated, was, unlike most Czech artists, inspired by German-style expressionism - the New Objectivity . It was also based on Picasso , Bosch and Henri Rousseau . Her popular subjects included women and social problems. She illustrated numerous books, including many for children, bibliophiles and newspapers and magazines (such as Lidové noviny, Prager Presse, České slovo, Pestrý týden, Ženský svět). For the so-called “home cinema” she made many hand-made slides in the early 1920s. She had her first independent exhibition in 1925, but her breakthrough came in 1930 with the exhibition in the Aventinská mansarda gallery .

In November 1939 Marešová joined the editorial team of the illegal magazine V boj , the most important resistance magazine in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . She illustrated them, designed front pages and she also participated in distribution. On September 21, 1940, she and 40 other people from the group were arrested by the Gestapo. Together with the main suspect Irena Bernášková , daughter of the co-founder of the Vojtěch Preissig group , and other people, she was transferred to Leipzig, Dresden and Bautzen for interrogation and sentenced to twelve years imprisonment for high treason on March 5, 1942 at the People's Court in Berlin spent in the Waldheim women's penal institution . She later described this time in her book Waldheimská idyla .

Works

• Milada Marešová: Waldheimská idyla [Waldheim Idylle], 1st edition, Dělnické nakladatelství, Prague 1947; 2nd expanded edition, Academia, Prague 2009, ISBN 978-80-200-1785-7 .

Exhibitions

• 1925, Prague, in Topičův salon
• 1930, Prague, in Aventinská mansarda
• 1931, Košice, in Východoslovenské múzeum
• 1932, Hradec Králové
• 1945, Prague, in Krásná jizba (with drawings from the Waldheim women's prison )
• 1985–1986, Brno, in Dům umění
• 2008, Brno, in Moravská galerie v Brně

swell

• Milada Marešová, a biography of the 2008 exhibition in Moravská galerie v Brně, online at: www.moravska-galerie.cz / ...
• Blanka Jedličková: Ženy okolo ilegálního časopisu "V boj" 1939–1942 [women working around the illegal magazine V boj 1939-1942], online at: dspace.upce.cz / ... (PDF; 5.3 MB)

Web links

• Literature and other media by and about Milada Marešová in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Works by and about Milada Marešová in the catalog of the German National Library