THE CENTENARY OF THE DEATH OF FRANZ KAFKA

“Portraits”
Kafka

In view of the anniversary,
unpublished portraits of Kafka
designed by Ettore Viola

June 3, 2024 marks the centenary of the death of Franz Kafka, one of the most enigmatic and studied authors of twentieth-century literature.

For the anniversary, Ettore Viola created thirty-six tables in ink, graphite and collage.

Portraits and illustrations that tell the story of Kafka’s world: his father, his beloved women, his Prague friends, the intellectuals of the Prague Circle, the magical Prague of the early 20th century, as the Slavist Angelo Maria Ripellino defined it, the publishers who understood before others his literary talent.

The ‘Kafka’ project will be followed by an exhibition and a catalog with a critical preface that interprets the graphic sign and the unprecedented reading of the human and intellectual path of the Prague writer.

Here are just five of the thirty-six unpublished illustrations by Ettore Viola.