Ivana Lomova is a Czech architect, illustrator, and photographer known for drawings that mix everyday observation with irony, stylised figures, and a slightly grotesque view of ordinary life. Born in Prague in 1959, she built her career inside architecture before moving into editorial illustration, children’s books, comics, animated film, and later photography.

Born in Prague in 1959 and trained in architecture at the Czech Technical University
Worked as a teacher and later full professor of architectural theory in Prague
Has drawn for newspapers and journals since 1984
Illustrated more than 25 books and worked on animated films
Her images often turn daily scenes into wry, unsettling visual narratives

How did an architect become an illustrator?

Lomova studied architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czechoslovakian Technical University in Prague, graduating in 1978. She stayed connected to the institution as a teacher, earned a PhD in 1983, and later became a full professor specialising in architectural theory. That background matters because her illustration work is grounded in structure, space, and the way people inhabit rooms, streets, and institutions.

Her move into illustration began in the 1980s, when she started drawing for newspapers and journals. By 1991, after making a comics series for children, she began receiving commissions for children’s books. She also worked on animated films, which extended her sense of timing, sequence, and visual storytelling beyond a single page.

What does her work look like?

Lomova’s drawings often show ordinary people in ordinary situations, but with a twist. Faces and bodies can look slightly exaggerated or awkward, and the scenes carry a dry humour that keeps them from feeling sentimental. The result is not caricature in a crude sense, but a careful distortion that exposes tension beneath the surface of everyday life.

Her line work tends to be clean and observant, with an illustrator’s attention to gesture, clothing, and domestic detail. That makes her images readable at a glance, even when the mood is uneasy. In both editorial and book illustration, she uses composition to place figures in relation to furniture, interiors, or urban settings, so the setting becomes part of the story rather than a neutral backdrop.

Why does her architectural training matter?

Architecture gave Lomova a disciplined way of thinking about space. In her work, rooms and streets are not just containers for figures; they shape behaviour, create pressure, and suggest social roles. That interest in how built space affects everyday life links her teaching in architectural theory with her illustration practice.

She has said, in effect through her body of work, that architecture is not only a profession but a way of seeing. That outlook shows up when she draws interiors with exactness but then introduces odd social dynamics or comic unease. The contrast between precise setting and emotionally unstable scene is one of the reasons her images linger.

How is she used in books, press, and film?

Lomova has worked across several publishing formats. Newspaper and journal illustration demands speed, clarity, and the ability to make an argument or mood visible in a single image. Children’s books ask for narrative continuity and a lighter visual rhythm. Animated film adds motion and sequencing, which fit her interest in human behaviour and visual timing.

Her output of more than 25 illustrated books shows that she is not a marginal occasional illustrator but a sustained professional in the field. Across those formats, the common thread is a strong authorial voice: precise, ironic, and alert to the comedy and discomfort of everyday life.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ivana Lomova mainly an architect or an illustrator?

She is both, and the two parts of her career overlap. Architecture formed her training and academic work, while illustration became a major public-facing practice from the 1980s onward. Her drawings are often richer because they carry an architect’s sense of space and an illustrator’s sense of story.

What themes appear most often in her drawings?

Everyday situations, domestic interiors, social awkwardness, and a faintly grotesque humour appear often in her work. She tends to observe ordinary life with irony rather than celebration. That tone gives her images a sharp, sometimes unsettling clarity.

What made her work move beyond newspaper illustration?

Her comics for children in 1991 helped lead to commissions for children’s books. From there, her practice broadened into editorial illustration, book illustration, animated film, and photography. Each medium suited a different part of her visual thinking, but all depended on her ability to make a scene legible and emotionally charged.