Professor Josef Skupa (1892-1957) was a Czech puppeteer, who in the early 1920s created his most famous puppets: comical father Spejbl and his rascal son Hurvinek, setting up in 1930 the first] modern professional puppet theatre. During the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, Skupa performed satiric and allegorical puppet plays on hundreds of stages all over Czechoslovakia, leading to th puppets imprisonment by the Nazis (in a filing cabinet!) for being generally too subversive. After 1945, Skupa continued to produce work for children and adults in Czechoslovakia and also performed abroad. Josef Skupa in his Office with Hurvinek. Date: circa late 1930s