author
Josef Čapek
1887–1945
A gifted Czech painter, writer, and poet, he helped shape modern culture in an unexpected way: the word “robot” came from him and entered literature through his brother Karel. His life joined playful imagination with deep moral seriousness, ending tragically after imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps.
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About the author
Born in Hronov in 1887, Josef Čapek became one of the most distinctive Czech artists of his generation. He studied in Prague, traveled to Paris, and built a career that ranged across painting, illustration, stage design, prose, and poetry. He is often remembered alongside his brother Karel Čapek, with whom he collaborated, and for giving the world the word “robot,” which Karel famously used in the play R.U.R..
Čapek’s art was influenced by modern movements including Cubism, but his work kept a warm, human touch of its own. He also wrote for children and adults, showing the same mix of imagination, humor, and sharp observation that appears in his visual art. That breadth makes him unusual even among celebrated writers: he was never just one kind of creator.
In the 1930s he spoke out against fascism, and after the Nazi occupation he was arrested in 1939. He was held in several concentration camps and died in Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. Because of that history, his work carries an added weight today: it preserves the voice of an artist who stayed humane and alert in a brutal time.