Jindřich Prucha

He then became a one-year volunteer, to avoid serving a full term of conscription, passed the officer's exam, and returned to his family in 1910 to spend all of his time painting.

Deciding that it was time for some formal training, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich and studied with Ludwig von Herterich.

He ended by attending the Technical University and taking drawing classes from Adolf Liebscher, which were designed to train high-school art teachers.

He was worried about his parents and his eldest sister Vojslava, who was deaf, and he had received a letter from a close female friend saying that their relationship was over, so he became despondent and considered suicide.

In 1944, the Nobel Prize winning Czech poet, Jaroslav Seifert wrote a long poem called Pruchovo jaro (Prucha's Spring).