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Like architecture and crafts, Czech design was regarded as an applied art. This mentality owed much to Devětsil (1920-1931), an association of artists founded in 1920. Karel Teige played a leading role, and its members were artists of many fields including architects and photographers. Notably, Czech avant-garde artists belonging to the group formulated a movement called “Poetism” that espoused an “art of life,” and forged connections between art and life. In the 1920s and 1930s Czech designers interacted with French and German artists and derived inspiration from them, while exerting a significant influence on Czech lifestyle and culture, especially through the field of book design.

This exhibition, held concurrently with 100 Years of Czech Design, draws from 120 Czech books from the 1920s and 1930s in the collection of the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka and presents an overview of Czech book design with a particular focus on six artists or artistic partnerships. What would it be like to have books like these on your night-table at home? Picture it in your mind as you immerse yourself in the enchanting world of Czech book design.

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  Jaromír Krejcar (ed.), Life II A Collection of New Beauty, 1922
  cover design: Feuerstein, Krejcar, Šíma, Teige, typo: Teige
  Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
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  František Nechvátal, Heat on the palette, 1935
  Graphic design: Zd. Rossmann
  Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
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  K. Čapek, R.U.R., 1946
  Cover design: O. Mrkvička
  Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
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  L. Klíma, Glorious Nemesis, 1932
  Graphic design: J. Štyrský
  Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
• 
  G.B. Shaw, Short works II, 1933
  trans.: A. Pflanzer and K. Mušek, design: L. Sutnar and title drawing: Zd. Kratochvíl
  Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka