The public knows Věra Říčařová primarily as a puppeteer, even though she is also the designer of numerous theatrical costumes and many set designs for puppet performances. The exhibition Věra Říčařová: Play presents the public with her independent artistic work for the first time. Dreamlike pictures full of fantastical shapes often emerge from colorful smudges or from seemingly unrelated lines, connected together by the artist using the force of her imagination in a way that is only possible for someone with a purely childlike spirit – one where playfulness and fantasy do not yet know any boundaries.
Věra Říčařová was born in Prague on April 25, 1936. She studied at the Ceramic School of Industrial Arts in Bechyně, afterward studying puppeteering at AMU (the Academy of the Performing Arts) in Prague. From 1959 to 1981, she was part of Drak Theatre, a puppet theater in Hradec Králové. There, she also met František Vítek, her partner in life and creativity. Without exaggeration, the Víteks are currently a legend in Czech puppet theater. After leaving Drak Theatre, they created the performance Piškanderdulá. Joseph! – in which they performed and have been performing for more than forty years here in the Czech Republic and around the world.