"When the Communists took over Czechoslovakia in 1948. Teige was first hailed as a progressive, then denounced for not toeing the party line - even though he was never a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. He died a broken man, forbidden to speak out or to publish. Since the recovery of his work after the "velvet revolution" of 1989, his legacy has been revived not only in Prague but also in Western Europe and the United States."--BOOK JACKET.
This series offers a range of heretofore unavailable writings in English translation on the subjects of art, architecture, and aesthetics.Teige's principal work on modernism, now in English for the first time, is supplemented by a selection of his other writings on art and architecture.
Known mainly as a critic and organizer of events on the Czech art scene of the 1920s, Karel Teige was also a leading figure of the avant-garde group Devetsil and a member of the Prague Surrealists. Between 1934 and his premature death in 1951, he privately produced nearly 400 collages, many of which are reproduced here as a testament to their vital role in the history of European Surrealism.
Art theorist and critic, graphic designer, artist, author and translator Karel Teige (1900-51) is today recognized not just as the creator of internationally acclaimed surrealist collages, but also as a leading figure of the European avant-garde. Teige spent his entire life commenting on and interpreting developments in the visual arts. His multifaceted theoretical writings helped shape the conceptual foundations of modern art, and his activities and intensive contacts with other members of the European avant-garde helped secure Czech art's place on the international art scene. His work anticipated, initiated and helped to develop the progressive artistic movements that fundamentally influenced art in the 20th century. Karel Teige was one of the great European intellectuals of his time; his efforts were aimed at creating not just a system of aesthetics but also an all-encompassing life philosophy. He was intensively interested in architecture and found inspiration in Germany's Bauhaus (where he spent a year lecturing); architectural functionalism would have looked completely different without his input. Teige's preference for rational, minimalist designs with an emphasis on the social uses of modern architecture was the "most functionalist functionalism" of his time. Teige's own work consisted primarily of a series of phenomenal collages that reveal the hidden and passionate aspects of his personality. His book designs set the tone for an entire generation, and his design principles remain valid today. Teige's complicated personality, full of contradictions, utopian dreams and a yearning for order and logic make him an indecipherable and deeply human individual, a perfect symbol for the 20th century. This comprehensive, nearly 800-page monograph, by the art historian Rea Michalová, takes a wide-ranging look at the evolution of Teige's ideological, theoretical and political views, and recalls important moments in his life and their significance within the international context. The book includes a rich set of illustrations, photographs from his life, and examples of his unique collages and graphic designs.
Published posthumously as Dreams, Styrský's dream journal spanning the interwar years comprises prose, sketches, collages, and paintings. The present volume includes the complete series based on Styrský's layout for its publication, his sole volume of poetry (also published posthumously), as well as a selection of his essays, lectures, manifestos, and other text fragments. This edition presents in English for the first time the broad range of Styrský's contribution to the interwar avant-garde and Surrealism.
Presents profiles of six European artists and photographs of their work to showcase the use of modernism on objects and products used for daily life during the twentieth century.
The book tells the story of individual artists in Central Europe who believed in art's power to change the world; they imagined a collective of human beings living happily in a free society liberated of injustice and inequality.
Photomontage was pioneered as a technique in central Europe in the 1910s, where it flourished as an art form through the end of World War II. While German artists such as John Heartfield, Max Ernst and Hannah Höch used the medium to respond to the atrocities of war, other areas of Europe were simultaneously experiencing a newfound political autonomy as the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed. For these artists, namely Polish and Czech, photomontage manifested itself in a Surrealist approach to cut-and-paste imagery that emphasized its potential for visual poetry. Photo/Montage in Print traces the explosion of photomontage art in book cover design and illustrated magazines in the interwar period. Documenting the remarkable contributions of Czech artists in the creation of the visual language of modern print media, the publication includes some of the leading artists of the Czech avant garde such as Karel Teige, Jindrich Styrsky, Toyen, Ladislav Sutnar and Frantisek Muzika.
