Pavel Tkadlec was born on October 1, 1964, in Šumperk, where he also lived from 1970 to 1989. Before 1970 and after 1989, his home was the village of Rapotín, nestled in the foothills of the Jeseníky Mountains. From a young age, he was captivated by the illustrations in fairy tale books, to the point where he began to recreate them by drawing them himself.
He was also fascinated by wood and the challenge of shaping it into interesting forms using nothing more than a simple pocket knife. This passion cost him quite a bit of blood—evidenced by his constantly cut fingers. The scent and color of wood have influenced him since he first learned to walk, often getting in the way of his grandfather in the carpentry workshop. His grandfather, who also drew in his youth, was forced to take up the trade of a wheelwright due to the harsh conditions in the Wallachian region.
At around the age of 13, the author became captivated by nature, particularly flowers, which he would bring home and carefully redraw in his sketchbook. He didn’t hesitate to spend all of his savings on an old gilded frame and a bouquet of cultivated, large-flowered irises from a local gardener. His fascination with delicate beauty became a challenge for him to put down his colored pencils and try tempera paints, and a few months later, oil paints—purchased by mistake in a hurry. Although his path seemed clear from the start, he chose, much like his grandfather Rudolf Tkadlec, to pursue a trade. He felt that if his beloved hobby, to which he devoted his best time, became a source of income, it would lose its charm. In 1980, he began an apprenticeship in Olomouc as an electrician. He lived in the school’s dormitory, located in an old building that had once been a monastery and later a barracks. This gloomy structure made him spend as little time there as possible, preferring instead to wander the streets of what was, at the time, his “big city,” Olomouc. He discovered streets with old, peeling houses, museums, galleries, and second-hand bookstores where he bought books on painters.
In 1980, he enrolled in the Miloslav Stibor Art School in Olomouc, studying under Jitka Tláskalová in the field of fine arts. From 1981 to 1984, he continued his studies under Vladimír Ženožička. He participated in many art seminars, competitions, and landscape courses organized by the OKS Olomouc, including ones led by Professor Marie Bělohlávková. During this period, he began to take an interest in landscape painting and was inspired by artists such as Josef Mánes, Otakar Kubín, and Antonín Slavíček, finding role models in them as early as the age of 15. Slavíček sparked his interest in Impressionism, and he tried to emulate this style. In 1985, a wooden jewelry exhibition caught his eye in a gallery, and because of his long-standing connection to this material, he decided to venture into this field as well, partly for financial reasons. However, he never abandoned painting, and between 1986 and 1989, he created, exhibited, and sold his works with a painter’s group at Villa Doris and the adjacent city park in Šumperk. In the early 1990s, he exhibited and sold works in a gallery run by Ing. Ševčík in the town square near the Šumperk town hall. It was at Villa Doris that he began to paint landscapes infused with more and more fantasy, moving increasingly toward surrealism. The sky, in particular, became a must-have feature in his paintings, even if it appeared as just a small window of light.
After the death of the gallery owner, Pavel Tkadlec sought another gallery to exhibit his works and found the Skácelík Gallery in Olomouc. There, he held his first solo exhibition at the end of 2000, followed by a second one in February 2003 at the Wiehl House in Prague, in the Academia bookstore on Wenceslas Square. Because of his strong connection to the Olomouc gallery, he remained loyal to it for years to come.
