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Collage on paper. 19 x 28.5 cm (dimensions in frame). Signed lower right: “AH71”. Collages were the main focus of the artist's work, especially in the later stages of his life. Whereas his early interwar work refers to the vibrant interconnectedness of the Prague cultural scene with the rest of Europe and the city's enthusiastic mood, works from the artist's later period tend to reflect his skepticism in a world sharply divided by the Iron Curtain, where the hope of the 1960s had been extinguished. Adolf Hoffmeister was a Czech author, columnist, playwright, painter, cartoonist, translator, diplomat, lawyer and traveler. In the early 1920s he was already an active figure on the cultural scene as an illustrator and poet; he was a founding member of Devětsil, worked with the Liberated Theater and later E. F. Burian Theater, and for some time (1930-32) he was an editor at Lidové Noviny. In 1951 he started teaching at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, which he later led (1954-56) as Rector of the Academy. After 1970 the government prohibited him from all public activity, so he retired and in 1973 he died in the small mountain village of Říčky v Orlických horách.