Mailbox

Today in Mailbox: The young Czech author Kateřina Tučková, comments on the proposed new name of the country, Radio Prague's 2016 QSL cards, mystery Czech quiz. Listeners/readers quoted: Jane E. Vsetula, Robert Tománek, Hans Verner Lollike, Li Ming, Jayanta Chakrabarty, Radhakrishna Pillai.

Kateřina Tučková, photo: archive of Kateřina Tučková

Hello and welcome to Mailbox, Radio Prague’s monthly programme for your views, questions and comments. Thank you for all your feedback, be it via e-mail or our Facebook page – that’s www.facebook.com/radioprague– where we post links to our stories.

And because all our programmes stay on the web, we sometimes get response to or queries regarding our older programmes, as was the case with this e-mail from Jane E. Vsetula from the United States. She came across an older edition of Czech Books featuring the young Czech author Kateřina Tučková.

“Dobrý den, are Ms. Tučková's novels printed in English? I have been reading many Czech novels, but I read only English! I'd like to purchase her books, but in English. Thanks.”

I contacted the author herself and she told me that unfortunately none of her books are available in English as yet. There is a short story collection titled “Prague Noir” which is due out later this year which will include a short story by Kateřina Tučková in English.

Robert Tománek from the United States once again returned to the debate on the proposed new and shorter name for this country.

“I believe there has been enough talk about Czechia. Pushing this talk is garbage. A waste of time. The only name change that could be... is Czechoslovakia. Czech and Slovak people live in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. Czechoslovakia is the ONLY name that could be used. Czech Republic, Slovak Republic... Basically it's all the same people. Why destroy the great heritage and history of the Slavic peoples in Central Europe?”

And our long time listener Hans Verner Lollike from Denmark sent us one more comment on the subject:

“I just would like to tell you, that your country’s name in Danish is TJEKKIET, parallel to SLOVAKIET and TYRKIET. Danish is a Germanic language, so you see – changing the name would not have any implications in my language, but I understand that changing any national symbols: flag, capital, national anthem and name creates a lot of feelings.

And he also comments on this year’s series of QSL cards:

Bethlehem Chapel, photo: Kristýna Maková

“As you can understand from my background, this year’s QSL’s are just top-of-the-pop. Thank you for choosing religious buildings. I just want to say that I miss one with tremendous symbolic importance in the protestant world –the Bethlehem Chapel (Betlémská kaple) in Prague. I know very well that it was rebuilt by the communist regime, since Jan Hus for them was a prerevolutionary, but on the other hand Jan Hus’s importance in European history in general cannot be neglected. I would certainly vote for the Bethlehem Chapel to be among the top 8 religious buildings. Best wishes and thanks for running such an informative radio! ”

Thank you very much for your comments and let’s get now to our regular listeners’ quiz which features outstanding personalities of Czech origin.

And let’s stay with Hans Verner Lollike who’s always among the first to write:

“I think the person you are looking for is Ruth Francken (born 1924, Prague – died 12 September 2006, Paris). She was a Czech-American sculptor, painter, and furniture designer who was mostly active in Paris.

“I have not been able to find info on her family and childhood… She began her studies with Arthur Segal at the Ruskin School at Oxford in 1939-1940. After emigrating to the United States, where she gained US-citizenship in 1942, she continued studying at the Art Students' League in New York City. She worked as a textile designer from 1943 to 1949, then returned to Europe in 1950 to work as a painter in Venice. She settled in Paris in 1952. In the early 1950s she painted in an abstract style, but gradually turned to sculpture as her primary mode of expression. In the 1960s her sculptures incorporate everyday objects contained in steel, wood, and glass cases, and there are political overtones to work that might otherwise reflect tendencies in pop-art or minimalism. In the 1970s she begins a series of anthropomorphic furniture pieces cast in plastic. She had all her arts melted into her works. I have been searching the Danish museums, but have not found her works here. But I remember somewhere to have seen chairs, which look like a human body.”

Li Ming from China writes:

“The person you are looking for this month is Ruth Francken, her 'Man Chair' is an excellent piece in the world, this work broke the boundaries between sculpture and functional object.”

This answer is from Jayanta Chakrabarty from India:

Ruth Francken, photo: Pantalaskas, CC BY-SA 3.0

“This Prague-born versatile artist, Ruth Francken studied painting in Oxford and later in New York where she started working as a textile designer. Ruth's career was greatly affected by her uprooted life during the interwar years and she was frustrated with the medium of painting. Thus although being recognised as an exponent in abstract expressionist early in her career, she soon became disillusioned with this kind of artwork style and switched over to a more surrealist and pop art culture. She began experimenting with industrial structures creating painting works which amalgamated painting with sculpture. During this period she was obsessed with textile technology and development of a series of photo-metallic reliefs and collages. This incorporation of industrial objects with pop artists has been recently displayed in an international exhibition in London's Tate Modern Art Gallery under the appropriate title ‘The World Goes Pop’.”

Also from India Radhakrishna Pillai wrote:

“Ruth Francken was a Czech – American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and interior designer, born in Prague on 8 August 1924. … Ruth Francken took painting classes with Arthur Segal in Oxford, and lived in New York from 1940 to 1950, receiving American nationality, before settling in Paris in 1952. Francken’s career was marked by her uprooted life and early frustration with the medium of painting. In Paris, her work was associated with art informal, but her dissatisfaction with abstract expressionism’s model and her own paintings led her to abandon the medium in 1964. Francken’s work from 1967 to the early 1970s is marked by an obsession with technology, as developed in her series of photo metallic reliefs and collages. The incorporation of industrial objects in her practice associated her with pop artists, despite her desire to escape any categorization, her prime interest in industrial language lying in its conflicted relationship to art. Breaking the boundaries between sculpture and functional object ,Man Chair’ from 1971 was directly plaster cast on a male model. The industrial plastic object thus retains a bodily texture, which questions the relationship between artworks and manufactured products.”

And finally, Mary Lou Krenek from the United States wrote:

“Ruth Francken was a Czech-American sculptor, painter, and furniture designer whose career was mostly active in Paris. She was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia as Ruth Steinreich and exiled in Vienna during the interwar years. Her life and career would span over six decades, two continents, and more than a half a dozen countries.

“In her early career, until around 1964, Ruth Francken was considered an Abstract Expressionist. After this time she began working with object sculptures, collage and different textiles and techniques and her art took on a more surrealist and pop art aesthetic. She focuses heavily on problems and disconnects in communication.”

And Mary Lou Krenek is also the winner of this month’s draw. Congratulations and your Radio Prague prize is in the post. And for those of you who haven’t been lucky this time, here’s a new mystery Czech for you to disclose in the coming month:

This time we are looking for the chemist and medical doctor born in 1787 in the South Bohemian town of Horní Planá. Having graduated from the University in Prague he performed the first scientific analysis of water in the Vltava River and he also analysed the mineral springs in the spa towns of West Bohemia.

If you’d like to take part in the lucky draw, your answers need to reach us by June 16th at the usual address, [email protected]. We are looking forward to your comments as well as reception reports. Mailbox will be back in four weeks’ time. Until then, happy listening and take care.