Honorable Mention in the Best Edited Historical Book category of the 2004 Golden Light Awards Photographic Book of the Year competition sponsored by the Maine Photographic Workshops Jaroslav Rossler (1902-1990) was one of the Czech avant-garde photographers of the first half of the twentieth century whose work has only recently become known outside Eastern Europe. Czech photography in the twenties and thirties produced radical modernist works that incorporated principles of abstract art and constructivism; Jaroslav Rossler was one of the most important and distinctive artists of the period. He became known for his fusing of different styles, bringing together elements of symbolism, pictorialism, expressionism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, new objectivity, and abstract art. His photographs often reduced images to elementary lines and shapes that seemed to form a new reality; he would photograph simple objects against a stark background of black and white, or use long exposures to picture hazy cones and spheres of light. From 1927 to 1935 he lived and worked in Paris, producing work influenced by constructivism and new objectivity. He used the photographic techniques and compositional approaches of the avant-garde, including photograms, large details, diagonal composition, photomontage, and double exposures, and experimented with color advertising photographs and still lifes produced with the carbro print process. After his return to Prague, he was relatively inactive until the late 1950s, when he reconnected with Czech artistic and photographic trends of that period, including informalism. This book documents each stage of Rossler's career with a generous selection of duotone images, some of which have never been published before. The photographs are accompanied by texts by Vladimir Birgus, Jan Mlcoch, Robert Silverio, Karel Srp, and Matthew Witkovsky.

Jaroslav Rossler: Czech Avant-Garde Photographer

Arts & Photography

Witkovsky, Matthew S.

Srp, Karel

Silverio, Robert

Individual Artists

Mit Pr

In 1928 Czech artistis Jindrich Štyrský and Toyen published the Artificielismus (Artificialism) manifesto, calling for "new formations" in contemporary art. The term aptly reflects the spirit of adventure that Houston philanthropists Roy and Mary Cullen brought to forming a comprehensive collection devoted to the radical developments of Czech art in the first decades of the twentieth century. New Formations: Czech Avant-Garde Art and Modern Glass from the Roy and Mary Cullen Collection profiles this endeavor, highlighting more than 150 examples from this extraordinary collection, which encompasses paintings, drawings, prints, collages, photographs, artist-produced books, and rare examples of modern glass. 
Generously illustrated with over 350 full-color plates, this catalogue highlights the major figures of the Czech avant-garde, including Josef Šíma, Karel Teige, Jindrich Štyrský, and Toyen, among many others. Scholars Karel Srp and Lenka Bydžovská bring to light the complex evolution and artistic exchanges of this era, which saw the emergence of the uniquely Czech movements of Devetsil, Poetism, and Artificialism, as well as these artists' engagements with Surrealism and other major intellectual currents of the time. Particular attention is given to artists' publications, and a number of period texts have been translated for this catalogue as well. The authors also place the Czech avant-garde in a larger historical context, as World War II and cold war shifts in the political landscape doomed many of these artists to decades of obscurity and exile. 
In addition, the publication features an extended interview with Roy and Mary Cullen conducted by Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, curator Alison de Lima Greene and an insightful essay by Jan Mergl, an expert in Bohemian glass, discussing the stylistic and technical evolution of modern Czech glass reflected by works in the Cullen collection.

New Formations: Czech Avant-Garde Art and Modern Glass from the Roy and Mary Cullen Collection

Greene, Alison De Lima

Bydzovská, Lenka

History & Criticism

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Associated with the Surrealists, painter, poet, writer ,and photographer Jindrich Styrsky first exhibited his photographs at the Group of Surrealists exhibition in Prague in 1935. His photographs, chiefly of shop windows, circuses, shooting galleries and funereal objects, resonates with the Surrealist poetry of the early 1930s, but are also rooted directly in his own unique imagination.

Jind ich Styrsky

Torst

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.

Karel Teige (TORST)

Teige, Karel

Výjimečné stavy: Povolání jazzová sekce (Czech Edition)

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Pragma

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Books by Srp, Karel