The Costume-Phantoms of Ester Krumbachová: Revisiting the Archive

Ester Krumbachová was one of the most original figures in Czechoslovak New Wave cinema, with a prolific career as a writer, director, set designer, and costume designer. She was one of many Czech artists effectively silenced by the communist regime and unofficially banned from Barrandov Film Studios until 1989.

Following the recent successful retrospective of Krumbachová’s work at the Metrograph Cinema, this lecture by Markéta Uhlířová will explore Krumbachová's unique approach to film costume design, while also considering her thoughts on fashion—a related but distinct area that informed her design process. Uhlířová will consider Krumbachová’s legacy as a filmmaker who put costume and set design at the center of her work, using them to craft striking cinematic imagery, and to simultaneously shape and disrupt narrative.

The lecture will be followed by a screening of Fruit of Paradise, a sensuous and subversive feminist retelling of the Fall of Man, where the “Eden” is reimagined as a seedy resort spa.

Markéta Uhlířová is a curator, writer and lecturer based at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Her research focuses on fashion, cinema and visual culture in the period between late-19th and early-21st centuries. She has organized major curatorial projects with arts and educational organizations including London’s Tate Modern, Barbican Centre, and the ICA; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; and Museum of the Moving Image, New York.

Ester Krumbachová (1923–1996) is perhaps best known for her long-term collaboration with director Věra Chytilová and cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera, which began with the seminal film Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966), yet her costume designs were central to the visual storytelling of the Czechoslovak New Wave more broadly. She worked with key directors including Jan Němec, Jaromil Jireš, and Karel Kachyňa, contributing to films that pushed boundaries both politically and artistically.

Krumbachová has been hailed as the “queen of Czech film design” and “the muse of the Czechoslovak New Wave,” but these descriptions only hint at the depth of her artistic contribution. Although prolific, her feature-film output includes only one official directing credit—Murdering the Devil (Vražda ing. Čerta, 1970), a film that remains underrated. Her stature has often been overshadowed by the auteurist tendency to privilege the director's role above all others. Moreover, Krumbachová frequently worked in the marginalized role of costume designer or as an unofficial script advisor, with her actual input often far exceeding her credited role. Still, her influence on New Wave cinema is unmistakable, through her singular artistic sensibility blending enchantment and disillusionment, sensuousness and seriousness. She was particularly at home in the exaggerated forms of fable, parable, and morality play.

Fruit of Paradise
dir. Věra Chytilová / 1970 / Czechoslovakia / CZ with EN subtitles / 99 min.

As co-writers and artistic collaborators, Ester Krumbachová and Věra Chytilová followed up Daisies with this equally provocative film. It's a sensuous and subversive feminist reimagining of the Fall of Man, set in a seedy resort spa. There, a married woman, Eva (Jitka Nováková), becomes entranced by a charming stranger (Jan Schmid), who, it turns out, moonlights as a serial killer. Alongside her collaborative work on the story and script, Krumbachová contributed art direction, set design and costuming—notably, Jan’s swanky, satanic red velvet suit. She and Chytilová are at their most exuberantly experimental in a film that makes bold use of slow motion, step printing, double exposures, and a steamrolling symphonic score by Zdeněk Liška.

In the online Ester Krumbachová Archive, you can find materials related to this film from the author's estate, such as film stills and the technical screenplay.

. It is a unique platform for collaborative research into Krumbachová’s interdisciplinary work, which unfolds in connection with projects interpreting the estate. The surprising proximity of Krumbachová’s themes to those of current philosophy and art makes this project a unique event that is transdisciplinary and overcomes the linguistic and cultural isolation of the so-called Normalization period in which the author lived and created. The archive provides access to the work of this extraordinary figure and its historical context in relation to contemporary art and theory.

The event is organized in partnership with the Ester Krumbachová Archive and supported by the European Union – Next Generation EU, the Czech Recovery Plan, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.

Articles about Ester Krumbachová:

Futures and Pasts: Murdering the Devil - Journal - Metrograph

The Velvet and the Worms: Ester Krumbachová’s Unsung Legacy

Host or Publisher Czech Center New York