Josef Čapek (Czech pronunciation:[ˈjozɛfˈtʃapɛk]; 23 March 1887 – April 1945[1]) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word "robot", which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.
Life
Čapek was born in Hronov, Bohemia (Austria-Hungary, later Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic) in 1887. First a painter of the Cubist school, he later developed his own playful, minimalist style. He collaborated with his brother Karel on a number of plays and short stories; on his own, he wrote the utopian play Land of Many Names and several novels, as well as critical essays in which he argued for the art of the unconscious, of children, and of 'savages'. He was named by his brother as the true inventor of the term robot.[2][3] As a cartoonist, he worked for Lidové noviny, a newspaper based in Prague.
His illustrated stories Povídání o Pejskovi a Kočičce (English translation as The Adventures of Puss and Pup[4]) are considered classics of Czech children's literature.