Washington, D.C.

I was pleased today to stumble across this avant-garde collection of book covers in the Smitsonian Institution Libraries… from the accompanying essay: “During the period between the two World Wars, the Czechoslovak Republic was an important and prolific center for avant-garde book design. Signed, limited editions showcased experimental design techniques, high-quality materials, and specially commissioned graphics. Book design for the general public, although mass-produced and much more affordable, was similarly innovative and attentive to questions of design. Not recognized as an important focus for academic inquiry until the mid-1970s, Czech book design has recently been the subject of several exhibitions and publications, including The Czech avant-garde and Czech book design: the 1920s and 1930s at the Florham-Madison Campus Library, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey.”

“Avant-garde Czech book design sprang from the Devetsil Artistic Union, a highly influential group of avant-garde poets, writers, artists, and designers active from 1920 to 1931. ReD [1927-31], the most important of Devetsil’s journals, published work by leading names in the fields of writing, art, and architecture, among them poetry by Mallarmé and Apollinaire; prose by James Joyce; reproductions of art by Arp, Chagall, Kandinsky, Brancusi, Mondrian and El Lissitzky; and articles on the architecture of Le Corbusier, Gropius, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Czech designers were also in direct contact with a range of artistic activity in Europe, especially France and Russia, and collaborated on projects with several important journals, including Merz, the publication of German Dada artist Kurt Schwitters. The Devetsil group encompassed, if at times uncomfortably, Czech artists working in two major styles, Poetism and Constructivism. Czech avant-garde book design separates broadly into four major movements: Poetism, Constructivism, Surrealism, and Socialist Realism. Each approach developed and utilized its own unique philosophy and aesthetic vocabulary…”

Read the full essay here and view the entire collection of covers here.

Books shown: George Bernard Shaw’s Obráceni kapitána Brassbounda, cover design by Ladislav Sutnar; Ladislav Sutnar and Oldřich Stary’s (eds.) Nejmenší dům, cover design by Sutnar; Joseph Deltaile’s Cholera, cover design by Josef Šíma.