User:Dr Shaggy/sandbox

Helena Bochořáková-Dittrichová (July 31, 1894, Vyškov, Moravia – 28 March 1980, Brno, Czechoslovakia) was a Czech illustrator, graphic novelist, and later a painter. She first studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and then in Paris during the 1920s. Bochořáková-Dittrichová was influenced by Flemmish artist, Frans Masereel, while studying in Paris Masereel and other graphic novelists at the time were addressing issues of oppression and social injustice in their works; however, Bochořáková-Dittrichová's work was distinct, presenting the realistic and day-to-day lives of middle class families, and also domestic issues that resembled her own life and upbringing.

Her first work, Z Mého Dětstui (From my Childhood), created in 1929 and published in 1931, is considered to be the first graphic novel (or wordless novel) published by a woman. The work consists of a story about the day-to-day activities of a sheltered girl in a middle class family, and is told entirely through woodcuts. The book was published in an edition of 300 by the British bookshop and gallery A. Zwemmer, formerly of Charing Cross Road London. Her other major work, Malířka Na Cestách (The Artist on Her Journey), which was unpublished, presents 52 woodcuts and is likely an autobiography of the artists own journey.