Like many working artists of the 1920s and 30s Czech painter and illustrator Zdeněk Rykr is most famous for his commercial work, designing striking ads for the Bat’a shoe company, Čedok travel agency, and packaging for Maršner-Orion, one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in Czechoslovakia between the wars.
Unrivaled in sophistication and originality, the self-taught artist most memorably created the blue chocolate star and the cord lettering on the Orion name that still exists on the brand’s packaging today.
He also designed the striking wrapper for the Kofila candy bar with its blackamoor imagery, still in circulation today despite these racially sensitive times.
Rykr’s whimsical graphic designs exist in stark contrast to an avant-garde solo career that produced expressionist, realist, and cubist works of a more haunting nature.
Rykr’s widespread commercial success and critical artistic acclaim make him a remarkable figure in the history of Czech art. He worked for Orion up until 1939.
In 1940, facing arrest by the Gestapo as a “degenerate” artist during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, Rykr committed suicide by throwing himself under a train at Barrandov.