What's in a Prague street name

Panuškova was built in 1965.

Jaroslav Panuška was born in Hořovice, near Beroun, in 1872. By the age of ten, he had already painted his first watercolour. His family moved to Prague, and he attended secondary school in Smíchov.

In 1889, Panuška started studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. After several breaks, he finished his studies in 1898; in the same year, he married Marie Suková, with whom he would have three sons and a daughter.

Panuška’s signature style can be well described as ‘spooky’ – here’s Vodník (The Water Monster) from 1896.

And here’s Návštěva mrtvého (Visiting the dead) from 1897.

After graduating, Panuška painted all across Bohemia, and visited the Balkans several times. Exhibitions dedicated entirely to his work took place in both Mladá Boleslav and Hradec Králové in 1910.

There was also a large exhibition of his works, concerning ‘vast antiquity’, in Prague in 1917.

Settling in Kochánov, near Světlá nad Sázavou, in 1926, the focus of his paintings from this point on became Lipnice Castle.

A member of the Union of Fine Artists from 1900, Panuška died in Kochánov in 1958, and is buried in Světlá cemetery. An oak tree in Kochánov that he was fond of painting is now named after him.