Passport of Pavel Vošický
Pavel Vošický (11 May 1939-18 July 2022) was an important - but currently little known - graphic designer, musician, political prisoner and exile. He graduated from the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Turnov (art blacksmith and locksmith). From 1959 he was imprisoned and in 1960 he was released on presidential amnesty. After his release he completed his military service in the technical battalions. In the 1960s he successfully graduated from the University of Applied Arts (in the studio of Prof. Hoffmeister). Alongside Karel Gott, Pavel Bobek, Eva Pilarová and Yvonne Přenosilová he performed as a singer in the Apollo art ensemble.
In 1969 he emigrated to the USA, where he worked as a graphic designer. He participated, for example, in the election campaign of the future President Jimmy Carter. In 1976 he became a citizen of the United States. During his American exile, he maintained contacts with important Czech artists (Miloš Forman, Ivan Passer, Pavel Landovský and others) and exhibited his work in New York, Prague and Vienna, among other places. Since the 1990s he has lived in the Czech Republic again.
The United States passport, which is in the collections of the Museum of the Memory of the Twentieth Century, was issued to Pavel Vošická after he became a US citizen and travelled on it in the 1970s and 1980s. He used it to travel throughout South America, Asia and Europe - including his native Czechoslovakia.
From 5 November 2024 to 31 January 2025, Pavel Vošický's work will be commemorated at the Za Rohem Gallery in Mělník, where an exhibition of his prints from the collections of the Museum of Memory of the 20th Century will be on display.
📷 Marta Myšková