It is visited by collectors of advertising posters, comic book enthusiasts and movie lovers for the sake of memories. Restorer Ondřej Zatloukal repairs old graphics, posters, banknotes and other paper objects. People from Italy, Austria or England also turn to him. Why should one be wary if one has old Shamrocks at home? And the restoration of which election poster did Zatloukal refuse for ethical reasons?
Restorer Ondřej Zatloukal | Video: Jakub Zuzánek, Michaela Lišková
Zatloukal’s work is different every day. They differ both in terms of topics and subjects. “Now I mainly make posters, whether for movies or advertising. They make up about 80 percent of the volume of work. Then there are also graphics, maps and comics. Sometimes even some book binding or even banknotes,” says the restaurateur.
Some collectors only want to repair movie posters after him, for example. The automotive theme is also popular among people. “It is also important how the collector approaches his collection. If he is interested in preserving the condition in which the work is, then it is more of a matter of conservation, or he wishes that the poster, the graphic, the map, the banknote looked as much as possible in the original state when it was printed,” explains Zatloukal.
Among the most common poster damages encountered by the restorer are various cracks in the poster stocks or, for example, water stains. “The big problem is the insulating tapes, which of course seem like the best, fastest form of repair to the average user, but we have a lot of trouble with it here and sometimes it’s really difficult to remove the stains,” describes the restorer.
King Kong for 500 thousand dollars
According to Zatloukal, collecting posters is now a very popular thing. “Perhaps some of the more interesting A1 size movie posters that reach me range in price up to 20,000 crowns. The more expensive pieces can be worth up to a hundred thousand. As far as I know, the most expensive Czech poster for the American film King Kong ranges in price from 400 to 500 thousand dollars. But that one did not appear at my place. I think two pieces are known – one is owned by UMPRUM and the other is somewhere in the USA,” he adds.
More expensive orders usually come to the Czech restorer from abroad. “In that case, it often involves sums of hundreds of thousands, it is mostly about the automotive theme, which has a relatively wide fan base. At the moment, I have the most customers from Italy, Austria and England. They approach me, firstly because I can be interesting for them financially, but then also that the approach to restoration is quite different in different parts of the world. In the Czech Republic, we have a relatively conservative approach, unlike, for example, the USA, where there is a lot of bleaching and there is an effort to make the posters look like new,” says Zatloukal.
But even Czechs can find hidden treasure “rolling” in the soil. For example, it is an old edition of the comics for children Four Leaf Clover. “Their price keeps going up. As far as I know, number one from 1969, in such good condition, this comic is around 50,000 crowns, which is not bad at all for a Four Leaf Clover,” adds the restorer.
He rejected the propaganda
In addition to movie posters and comics, it sometimes happens that the restorer is visited by a collector with a somewhat “problematic” offer. “When someone comes to a person with a propaganda poster of either regime, they have to think about how to approach it. For me, what is important is the purpose for which the collector acquired it, whether he is collecting it for the collection of a studio that he’s supposed to testify about some time, so it’s probably fine,” says Zatloukal.
“Of course, if he is clearly a fan not so much of the posters themselves, but rather of some totalitarian regime, then it is perfectly fine for me to refuse the offer, which I have already done once. It was about restoring an election poster of the German NSDAP,” he concludes .
