HAND DRAWN AND INKED CARTOON AND COLLAGE PHOTO ALBUM, 1948 CZECH COWORKERS

There are twenty-seven beautifully drawn and funny pages in this 9.25" x 12.5" Czech collage and cartoon album, given to a Mr. Jan Dřímal from his coworkers in August, 1948. The album is done in pen and colored inks, with a very steady hand and lovely eye for detail as well as a good grasp of comic cartoon stylings and poses. The title page is a beautiful bouquet of flowers with lovely lettering on top, introducing the book for Mr. Jan. The following page appears to be an homage to the recipient, with a photo of presumably Mr. Jan (with a stamp-type wreathe inked with his initials JD in the bottom right corner) hovering over a wonderful drawing of sewing machines. The third page appears to introduce the setting - buildings poking out from a forested hillside, perhaps the factory town? The caption of this page, google translated, reads: "Your glorious day today will be fulfilled by good wishes and good wishes and dedicated to the flowers of glory. Let everybody enjoy the time of joy and happiness, and to your welfare, everything is beautiful in the world!" Following that are pages of various figures (always with a pasted photograph of one of his coworker's head with a body drawn around) in comical settings and activities throughout the rest of the book. These scenarios include: a coworker sitting back next to an automatic sausage machine with a pig's rear sticking out the top, a gymnast, hiking, several mechanics tinkering, a slip and fall on wintry ground being laughed at by a rabbit, a distillery, a man sawing the head off a duck in front of a train, a man saving cigarettes by cutting them in thirds, a man filling a baby bottle with beer, and more! Likely a riot If someone can adequately translate the descriptions in Czech by each drawing. The final page is a drawing of a scroll filled in with signatures from coworkers. Overall the book is in very good shape, with only the first leaf (blank) loose in the binding. The cover is cream embossed paper with red book cloth and white rope binding, and shows a little UV darkening; the album quite sound in structure and condition, with pages in near perfect, unbent condition.