| Josef Lada | |
| Birth Date: | 1887 12, df=y |
| Birth Place: | Hrusice, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary |
| Death Place: | Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Occupation: | Illustrator, Writer |
| Signature: | Josef Lada signatura.jpg |
Josef Lada (born 17 December 1887 in Hrusice, Bohemia – 14 December 1957 in Prague, buried at Olšany Cemetery) was a Czech painter, illustrator and writer. He is best known as the illustrator of Jaroslav Hašek's World War I novel The Good Soldier Švejk, having won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1963.
The asteroid 17625 Joseflada has been named after him.[1]
Born in the small village of Hrusice in a cobbler's family, he went to Prague at the age of 14 to become an apprentice binder. Entirely self-taught, he created his own style as a caricaturist for newspapers, and later as an illustrator. He produced landscapes, created frescoes and designed costumes for plays and films. Over the years he created a series of paintings and drawings depicting traditional Czech occupations, and wrote and illustrated the adventures of Mikeš, a little black cat who could talk.
Lada produced nearly 600 cartoons of the Švejk characters, depicting Austria-Hungary officers and civil servants as incompetent, abusive and often drunk. All subsequent editions of Švejk used Lada's illustrations, except for the 2008/2009 Czech edition illustrated by Petr Urban.
. Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, volume 1 . Lutz D. Schmadel . 2003 . Springer . 9783540002383 . 847 . 12 August 2012 .