We met in 1965. At a meeting in Jircharich, the student dorm of the Prague Comenius faculty. I used to smoke pipe back then and Ivan Urbanek approached me and asked what kind of tobacco I was smoking. We exchanged tobacco. I gave him my batch of Upper Ten and he gave me his batch of Slovak Baca. He offered to show me around Prague. That is how I came into his life, and he in mine. We walked through Prague, through the old city, Mala Strana and Liben. The parts I didn't know. He showed me the Prague people lived in, not the Prague on display.

Ivan had been drawing Prague for a number of years. I don't know when he started doing that. He must have made thousands of drawings. In 1961 he had an exhibition in Mlada Fronta. He didn't draw people. He also rarely drew historic architecture. But he drew the streets, the shadows, the public restrooms, the trees and the bridges.
He drew what people left behind. He drew what everyone sees every day, the places people live. He always carried a few pencils with him. Sometimes they were just an inch long. He also carried around a small sketchbook. This way he was always armed and could draw what he saw around him.

To me this was a great opportunity to get to know the city well. In 1964 I had had the opportunity to study at the Prague Comenius faculty. This was an excellent opportunity to get to know people in an isolated country. I couldn't have wished for a better introduction than Ivan's. In 1965, the year I met him, he was drawing human figures. Creatures he called 'trottles' and that sometimes looked like dogs or chickens, but were always human. At least, they had human characters: a little mean and little nice.

He drew with a pen, pencil or brush. His painter's easel had been stashed high on top of a cupboard for years because there was no room on the floor. He lived with his wife Vera on 36 square meters. There was no room for paintings and large sizes.

Ivan didn't need a lot of space in the world. He was capable of living and working on a few square meters. He didn't demand a lot of room, but he did demand freedom. He didn't want people touching his things. When he was young he may have worked larger projects, but ever since I met him the largest drawings I have seen him make were in 18 by 20 centimeter work books.

The 'trottles', besides having served as illustrations to poems, on New Year cards and in books, have been exhibited in German Bielefeld, and in the Netherlands in Utrecht and Enkhuizen.

Ever since I got to know him he was isolating himself. From other artists as well. He didn't want to live in artistic circles.

He didn't make a living drawing, but he lived from his graphic design work. He designed magazines, books, calenders. He was a professional in that area. He ended up even winning international prizes with it. In 1968 (the year of Dubcek's reforms and the Russian invasion) he got some marvellous projects. Like the layout for Plamen, the monthly magazine of Czech authors and also the layout for books he really deemed important.
I've given the magazine Plamen to people who didn't speak a word Czech, and they flipped through it's pages for minutes anyway. In 1968 he once told me that the board of editors was criticising his layout. They said he was using too much space for titles that were also often unreadable. Ivan's response was: “Gentlemen, I'm not good at writing articles and I will not involve myself with how that is done. You don't know graphic design, I would ask you to refrain from involving yourself with it.”

Twice I've asked him to make up a design for a new magazine. I let him run wild. And twice he came up with a layout I had never seen before. Those two magazines were the Dutch “In de Waagschaal” and the newsletter “Globaal”.

After 1969 the situation changed. Publishers wanted to give him work, but Ivan rejected work from—mandatory and stupid—Russian authors. And this way he slowly lost work from the publishers. He had to turn to designing paper wrappers for cans.
In just one year he recieved three international prizes for designing a book: a Polish, a French and a Russian award. He refused the Russian one and accepted the other two. In consequence the publishers sent less work his way.

At first he drew Prague. Then trottles that looked like people. But these figures always stood alone. They needed a context. So in the 1970s he started placing the people—his trottles—in a context. And the stories that inspired him were those from the Old Testament.
I remember talking to him about that. That it might be wise to start with a little known book from the bible. So illustrations that he aready knew wouldn't interfere.
And so he started with Leviticus instead of Abraham.
At least fifteen years he spent drawing the Old Testament. He drew Genesis, Exodus, Numeri, Deuteropnomium, Job, Proverbs and Psalms in the little work books. I don't know how many drawings he made total. He read and drew, read and drew. And some passages he did over a few years later. He drew in notebooks. He neatly wrote a number and date on each.

Of the drawings that pertain to the Old Testament the first series of Leviticus has been published in the Czech Republic by the publisher Kalich as illustrations in various magazines. In the Netherlands a part was published in “In de Waagschaal”. In Utrecht blow-ups of the series were exhibited in the Buurkerk church.
In 1995 there was a major exhibition on the Old Testament throughout Prague. Many museums and galleries participated. At the exhibition the work of Ivan was also on display. The exhibition was organised by Miroslav Rada, with whom he had exhibited work in Enkhuizen. There I made the decision to find someone interested in publishing his drawings. Twelve years passed before the plan was carried out. Thanks to Ivan's sister and her daughter who made this edition possible.

Bert Kisjes