To mark the commemoration of the anniversary dates of the Czech engraver Bohuslav Reynek, who died in Petrkov on 28 September 1971, and his French wife, the poet Suzanne Renaud, who was born in Lyon on 30 September 1889, we are republishing a document from the archives: a text that first came out during the Suzanne Renaud-Bohuslav Reynek exhibition at the Maison Stendhal in Grenoble in 1985.

This short biography was written in close collaboration with the artists’ sons, Michel (Jiří) and Daniel Reynek, with whom we were able to have many conversations despite the circumstances. To our knowledge, it is the first account of the Reyneks’ lives to be made available to the French public.

Although information may have been lacking during the years before the fall of the Iron Curtain, we have left this document almost untouched, preferring to add photographs illustrating two lives — two destinies that intertwined in the tumultuous history of their respective countries, France and Czechoslovakia.

▶  Biographie de Suzanne Renaud et Bohuslav Reynek, 1985