Peter Sís

About a week and a half or so ago, my friend Andrew Siwoff, through his various contacts and connections met up with Peter Sís and was so impressed by him that he suggested that he speak at the NYU center in Prague.  So we spent two hours tonight listening to this incredible man as he told us very briefly about his life and just scratched the surface of telling us about what he has done.  Peter grew up in communist Prague.  His father was a documentarian who served in the army by going to Tibet to teach the art of documentary making.  Peter became an artist and film maker.  He was also an all-star DJ in the Czech Republic.  He toured with The Beach Boys when they toured Prague, Brno, and Bratislava, he was the one who announced The Beach Boys at their concerts.  He was sent by the Soviet government to America before the 1984 summer Olympics in L.A. to participate in a international film making project.  While in the U.S. for that film he also began making a film for Bob Dylan.  That year the U.S.S.R. pulled out of the Olympics and Peter decided to stay in order to finish the Bob Dylan video knowing that he might not be able to go back to Prague.  After being somewhat unsuccessful in L.A., he moved to New York City because Maurice Sendak felt that Peter would have a future in children's books.  Peter worked for scraps for a while but then made it big when he was commissioned to create the poster for Amadeus.

From that point on he has been very successful.  He has written many children's books.  Peter even has created pieces that were commissioned by NYC for the subway cars themselves as well as having created the art for the mosaics in the 86th and Lexington subway stop.  Aside from being an incredible individual, Peter is an enthralling speaker.  He told us captivating stories with perfect comedic timing, similar to that of Eddie Izzard.  I bought his book about his life in Prague under the Iron Curtain and I have some pictures below.

This page is great, it shows all of the creative or banned activities that everyone was forced to do in hiding.  Peter told us how everyone lived a double life during this time.

This was his view of the life of the western world.

Here is his memories of when The Beach Boys first came to visit.  Notice the drab monotone look. 

These two pages show the struggle between the youth/rebels and the communist government over the Lennon wall.  This is a wall over by Lesser Town where all the bohemians gathered and discussed politics and culture.  They painted a huge mural of John Lennon, hence the name the Lennon wall.  The government would constantly paint the wall white, and as soon as they did the youth would paint new murals on it, and so they went back and forth.

Look closely at this map as Peter has put down the attributes of each side of the wall on to the landscapes.

He even did a little signing after.  He drew this neat little sketch which, being very appropriate to the book, reminded me very much of Pink Floyd's The Wall.  Listening to Peter talk was the perfect way to spend the evening.  He is such a humble man, you can tell just how much he appreciates every talent and opportunity he has been given.  Since he now lives outside of NYC (He was in Prague on business, a children's book conference in Copenhagen), I hope to see him speak again one day.