I did not feel sorry for myself because I said to myself that I wanted freedom and so that I would see if I got it
Stáhnout obrázek
Ota Nalezinek was born on the 4th of May 1930 in Lomnice nad Popelkou where he spent his childhood and early teenage years. He had an artistic background while growing up, his father Josef was a musician and ran a private music school in Lomnice. In 1945, he joined Ostrava radio orchestra thanks to a successful audition and the whole family moved to Ostrava. Ota studied at grammar school there and wanted to continue studying at The Academy of Fine Arts in Prague after Secondary-school leaving exam. However, his father discouraged him from being an artist and because of it, Ota started to study Art Education at Pedagogical Faculty in Prague under Cyril Bouda. His parents considered teaching profession more practical. He studied the last year as an extramural student in Liberec, he decided to start working because he expected [to have] more freedom. He started to be bothered by how much the ideology of the Communist Party influenced even Art studies at the faculty in Prague. He started his first teaching job in the border town in the North of Bohemia. He taught students of second stage of basic education and tried to make them like and be interested in art. At the same time, he also created his own art and became one of the artists of North Bohemian art group Kontrast (Contrast) who refused to create art in the spirit of socialist realism. Nonetheless, the feeling of absence of freedom grew in him, he refused to adapt to general trend for political commitment that was motivated mainly by profit-seeking motives and he decided to emigrate in 1969. He spent several difficult months in Austria and subsequently settled down in Luxembourg where he was granted political asylum. Despite the difficult beginning when he often felt completely overwhelmed, he managed not only to build a new home but he also became an appreciated and wanted artist; mainly thanks to his distinctive art style that was different from local art scene. In the course of time, he started to display his artworks all over Western Europe but only after 1990 in the Czech Republic. In emigration, he sought freedom and independence that he lacked in his native country and that meant fundamental need and motivation for him. Although he spent his most prolific and successful years in Luxembourg, he always perceived his stay there as temporary. He started to come back home to the Czech Republic as soon as it was possible.
