Adolf Hoffmeister (August 15, 1902 - July 24, 1973) was a Czechoslovak caricaturist, illustrator, poet, writer, painter, politician, diplomat, and journalist. Born in Prague under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hoffmeister studied at a Real Gymnasium in Prague where he met most of the future members of the avant-garde group Devětsil, which he helped found. He entered the Faculty of Law at Charles University in Prague following graduation and received a doctorate in 1925. He began writing poetry in 1917, first publishing them in magazines under pseudonyms. He continued creating work, writing, and traveling throughout the 1920s and 1930s and had solo exhibitions in Paris and Brussels. During the 1930s, Hoffmeister's caricatures became decidedly antifascist, publishing in the anti-fascist weekly 'Simplicus' with German emigrants forced to flee by the Nazis. When the German Army occupied Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, Hoffmeister, a well-known antifascist who had participated in the International Exhibition of Caricature and Humour in 1934, was forced to leave Czechoslovakia. He received a French visa at the insistence of French poet Louis Aragon and founded the Maison de la Culture Tchécoslovaque (House of Czechoslovak Culture in Paris. The Maison became a cultural center and a refuge for Czechoslovak painters, writers, professors, musicians, and journalists in exile. However, in September 1939 after France declared war on Germany following the German invasion of Poland, the police raided the house believing it to be the headquarters of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in exile. Hoffmeister and the other residents were arrested under the suspicion of being enemy spies. After serving a six month sentence in La Santé Prison, Hoffmeister and three other artists (including Antonín Pelc), fled to Casablanca, Morocco. In Morocco, Hoffmeister managed to secure transit to Lisbon, and from Lisbon he made his way to the United States. Hoffmeister spent his first six months in the U.S. with friends in Cleveland and Hollywood before arriving in New York City in December 1941. While in New York, his work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art with Antonín Pelc in an exhibition entitled War Caricatures by Hoffmeister and Peel. Hoffmeister returned to Czechoslovakia in June 1945, joined the Communist Party, and became the head of the 6th Department of the Ministry of Information and Education in November. He spent the subsequent twenty-three years creating art and caricatures, writing, and traveling on behalf of the Czechoslovak government. After the failure of the Prague Spring, Hoffmeister fled to Paris, where he spent two years working as a professor at the Université de Vincennes. He returned to Prague in 1970, and was summarily expelled from the Communist Party and banned from all public, publishing, and exhibition activities. He died of a heart attack on July 24, 1973.



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