1949
I was born on 11 May 1949 in Brno. Dad’s name is Vladimír; Alenka is my mom’s name. I have a younger sister Hana. Soon we’ll move to Prague.
1953
My dad begins his mandatory military service. As the director of films for the military they send him to China to make a documentary. Gone for almost two years, he will meet the young Dalai Lama in Tibet.
1956
I attend elementary school on Slovenská Street in the Vinohrady district of Prague. Slogans about peace are everywhere; in school we keep drawing battles and soldiers. Of course, our favorite game is to play soldiers. Every kid has to have a serious rifle.
1958
draw incessantly and receive bad comments on my school record:
February 25th — “Does not wear his Pioneer scarf!”
April 24th — “Lately Peter once again annoys with drawing. Please have a word with him!”
1961
In Berlin they built a wall in the middle of the city. They’ve closed the border between the West and the East. Europe is divided by an iron curtain.
1962
In May we always stand guard by the huge statue of Stalin that overlooks the city of Prague. Now they blew the statue up.
1965
At the end of winter 1965 the American poet and beatnik Allen Ginsberg arrives in Prague. He wears sneakers, becomes The King of May and writes a poem about it. I’m drawing guys with long hair, “girly boys” they’re called. Police chase them, and when they catch one, they cut his hair.
1968
Finally, it’s possible to travel all over Europe. I hitch hike to England where I conduct interviews with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. In London I saw a James Bond! I draw everything.
August 21st, Russian tanks are everywhere. Soldiers occupy our country and soon freedom comes to an end. I’m accepted to the School of Graphic and Industrial Design. I was selected by Jiří Trnka and after his death I attend the studio of professor Jágr.
1969
I begin playing records in the Olympic and Sluníčko clubs in Prague and I run some of the first discotheques in Czechoslovakia in Poland. I write about music for a variety of journals and continue drawing. The popular American group The Beach Boys arrives. I introduce their concerts in the Prague Lucerna Hall and in Brno.
1973
Every university art student must create an art piece celebrating the Soviet Army. Luck has it that I’m studying animation. I only paint the backgrounds and I explain that the tanks will arrive later… They tell us that our generation has no future; we are not to be trusted because we have been spoiled by the events of 1968. I keep drawing. Drawing brings hope.
1974
I’m still drawing and painting LP covers, film posters, and book and magazine illustrations. My final work for graduation is an animated film MIMIKRY. It’s actually visual poetry with music by Blue Effect, my favorite rock group. Later I design the cover for their LP THE WORLD OF SEEKERS. The guitarist, Radim Hladík, gives me his guitar picks as a souvenir.
1980
My animated short film HEADS wins the top prize at the film festival in West Berlin. On 8 December 1980, John Lennon was shot in New York. On Prague’s Island of Kampa we paint whatever pleases us on a wall. It does not please the police.
1982
I designed the costumes for the opera THE GARRULOUS SLUG by Jiří Pauer for the Laterna Magika troupe of the National Theatre. Much later I learn that the actors had a hard time performing in my creations from the undersea world and cursed me. As the great hope of Czech animation, I got permission to travel to Los Angeles. The International Olympic Committee invited animators from different countries to create signature shorts for individual sports. Mine was rowing.
1983
ncredibly bad luck—the Soviet Union and its allies boycott the Olympics. I must return home immediately. I do not return. Freedom needs wings. I make an animated short to a song by Bob Dylan for the new television station MTV (Gotta Serve Somebody). But his managers don’t like it.
1984
The director Miloš Forman completes his film AMADEUS. He’s a friend of my dad and likes my illustrations. He has me do the poster. He shot the scene with the mask shop in our house in Prague’s Lesser Quarter. I’m drawing Prague while in Hollywood… Finally good luck comes my way in America. The New York Times print my first illustration. My first book is published in the West: BEAN BOY (text by George Shannon).
1987
RAINBOW RHINO won a prize for best illustrated children’s book. The American president Ronald Reagan arrived in West Berlin and said: “Tear down this wall!”
1989
It’s November 17th and the police clash with students on Národní Avenue in Prague. The Velvet Revolution has begun. I fly home. We will all be together again at last. Our whole family. Czechoslovakia is free.
1990
Terry and I celebrate freedom with marriage and travel to the island of Komodo. President Havel visits New York with the new government and many of his friends. They offer me the position of ambassador or minister.
1992
Our daughter Madeleine is born. Jacqueline Onassis becomes the editor of my new book which will be called THE THREE GOLDEN KEYS.
1994
Our son Matěj is born. My younger brother David and I travel to Alaska and Dawson City to find the grave of Jan Welzl, the hero of A SMALL TALL TALE FROM THE FAR NORTH, which I have just finished.
1996
At the White House I give Bill Clinton an egg I painted for the American Egg Board. STARRY MESSENGER, the book about the life and work of Galileo Galilei, is published.
1997
I have an exhibit in the Riding Hall of the Prague Castle that is extended twice. It makes me happy.
1998
My dad is ill. I work on TIBET THROUGH THE RED BOX. I meet with the Dalai Lama that he may bless the book. I’m inspired by my kids. Matěj thinks he‘s a fire truck, bulldozer, submarine and finally a dinosaur. Madelaine is showing all our neighbors that she lost a tooth and has an invisible dog. I gradually publish several picture books for them.
2000
Our family travels to Paris for a year. I prepare an animated film. The world is open and free.
2001
At the beginning of September my father dies. I fly to Prague. That very same day the World Trade Center is in flames. Sadness and fear. I draw the picture of a WHALE in the shape of Manhattan for the New York subway. It travels around on the trains for nearly two years to give people courage.
2003
THE TREE OF LIFE about the naturalist Charles Darwin is published. I receive a golden medal for it in Bologna. My first book with Labyrint Publishers in Prague appears. It turns out that turtles related to the ones Darwin encountered on the Galapagos live in the Prague Zoo. In New York, in the subway station on the corner of 86th and Lexington Avenue, my mosaic HAPPY CITY is unveiled. I receive a call from an anonymous number telling me that I received the MacArthur Foundation award. For a moment I think someone is pulling my leg. I receive a stipend sometimes referred to as the “genius award.”
2004
The children are growing fast and I want to capture what it was like when they played. The book about little Mozart is published and we launch it in the Villa Bertramka in Prague.
2006
The Tibet book inspires a magical puppet show. The group Puppets and Cake (Buchty a loutky) will continue to perform it for ten years.
2007
For five years, thanks to the prestigious MacArthur stipend, I am free to work on what interests me. I tell my children stories about where I came from and how I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. Gradually my most important book emerges – THE WALL.
2008
THE WALL is published all over the world and wins many awards. I travel with the book to India and Jerusalem. I begin working with Art for Amnesty.
2011
I had long been fascinated by the ancient Persian epos about a hoopoe who leads all the birds to the magic mountain Kaf. THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS is published in Czech long before it appears elsewhere in the world. I carry a fresh copy to Václav Havel with my dedication. A few months later the president dies. In his honor I draw a picture of a man flying over the Hradčany Castle, an image turned into an enormous tapestry woven in the south of France. The FLYING MAN is ceremoniously unveiled at the Prague airport.
2012
In London, under the wings of Saint-Exupéry’s airplane, I receive the Hans Christian Andersen Award for my lifetime’s work for children.
2014
THE PILOT AND THE LITTLE PRINCE is published; a book about the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a tribute to the Little Prince, to bravery and to children’s dreams.
2015
The YELLOW SUBMARINE was hung at Ellis Island through which millions of immigrants arrived in the US. The tapestry based on my picture was unveiled by Yoko Ono, and Bono and Edge of U2.
2017
A new book – ROBINSON, another reflection on childhood and my mom. My brother David starts making a documentary film about me (Dreams about Wondering Cats.)
2019
My thoughts are on a new book about Nicholas Winton and the children he saved. I represent Czech literature at the Leipzig Book Fair. This is a big honor for me. The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, west of Boston, prepares a beautiful retrospective of my work (The Picture Book Odysseys) and the Prague gallery DOX opens a major exhibition about the idea of freedom as an inspiration in my art (On Flying and Other Dreams). The exhibition will be extended twice and will be seen by over a hundred thousand visitors.
2021
For several years I have been thinking about a new book about Nicholas Winton and the children he saved from the Holocaust. On the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Nicky & Vera is being published in New York and London. It will soon be translated worldwide and published in Czech. I am preparing a big exhibition to Tokyo, Japan. The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival will show the documentary Dreams about Stray Cats, made by my brother David.
