Jaroslav Najman

* 1936

  • "Now, I'm only under the term landscaper. I fell so in love with that landscape - it's different from making a portrait of someone. The landscape and the Bohemian Paradise in general - that is the promised land. The Drhelny village is on the edge of the Bohemian Paradise, and it’s four kilometres to Valečov, to Kost. It's a short distance, and wherever you look, it's beautiful. I was able to sweep other friends and girls. To this day, I still call them girls, even though they are the same age as me. Well, that's something else - you rest during it, but when you stack ten quintals of coal, you're less tired than when you paint because with that hand stretched out... But you enjoy it, admire the log cabins, and return a century or two hundred years back. As Hrušínský used to say, 'I am feasting my eyes.' Several times, when we were having a workshop, someone came and said: 'Why are you painting this? I'll demolish it in half a year.' Then, as the villages started growing, they lost their charm, and we started painting only the landscape with the little churches because the little churches sanctify the landscape."

  • "[Antonín Čelechovský] was an excellent organizer. Even before we had our first members' exhibition, he arranged a whole bus to go to Germany to the Dresden gallery. And on the way there, we also visited the Meissen porcelain manufactory. Čelechovský arranged that. We helped him fill the bus, up to thirty seats. I don't remember if they were theatre people or photographers. I do not know. But this was his first act, which was a wonderful plus. The second wonderful plus - we had a members' exhibition. Thanks to him, we could present our things - they selected things we painted at home. He examined what was good and what was not and selected a collection of paintings from about twenty-two authors. And this members' exhibition, when it ended..." - "Where was it held?" - "It was at Na Karmeli street, where Standa Kovář had a folk art school. He then took this members' exhibition to Lidice without telling us anything. We only found out later. It ended up in Lidice, and our exhibition was also taken to Žitava. So that’s how our first exhibition - a collection from twenty people who used to meet up - was shown abroad for the first time."

  • “My grandmother lived in Husová street, it used to be Klaudiánova street - so a bomb fell through the roof of the neighbouring house, but it didn't explode because it was filled with sand. The whole old cemetery was bombed. It was terrible there." - "So you saw the consequences of the bombing?" - "Yes, because my grandmother lived one street higher than the old cemetery, and we used to visit her." - "What did the cemetery look like ?” – “It was terrible. There were holes, and the graves were scattered around. At that time, they only used coffins for burials. Perhaps, there were no urns yet. It was terrible at that cemetery.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Mladá Boleslav, 25.04.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:34:27
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
  • 2

    Mladá Boleslav, 11.07.2022

    (audio)
    délka: 01:46:20
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

The rocks covered him from the bombs. He then immortalized the landscape of the Bohemian Paradise in his paintings.

Wedding photo of Jaroslav Najman from 1959
Wedding photo of Jaroslav Najman from 1959
zdroj: Witness archive

Jaroslav Najman was born on July 14, 1936, in Mladá Boleslav. He grew up with his parents and two siblings in Vandrovec, where he lived through the Second World War as a child. The family hid from the raids in nearby caves. The witness experienced the bombing of Mladá Boleslav by the Red Army on May 9, 1945, and its devastating consequences. After attending the town school, he continued his studies in Turnov at the High School of Arts and Crafts, where he specialised in cutting precious stones. As a graduate, he started working in Karlovy Vary, where he met his future wife, Libuše Kolářová. Together they moved back to Mladá Boleslav and started working at the Škoda car company. They were married in 1959 and later had two sons. In the same year, the witness became a member of the Mladá Boleslav art club. He participated in its management and organized lectures and creative workshops under the guidance of academic painters. Together with other artists from Mladá Boleslav, he exhibited his works throughout the region and even abroad. He and his colleague Vladimír Vlk founded the painting group VLNA. After the Velvet Revolution, he became a member of the Association of Artists of the Czech Republic. The activity of the art association lasted until 1995, after which the studio was officially dissolved due to dismissal from the spaces of the House of Culture. However, the painters continued to meet and exhibit. Jaroslav Najman lived in Mladá Boleslav in 2022.