Modern book covers from the museum library

The exhibition Modern Book Covers from the Museum Library presents a cross-section of the visual appearance of Czech book covers of the 20th century through collection items from the holdings of the Book Culture Department of the National Museum Library. It shows different approaches of artists and the artistic transformation of envelopes across one century - it presents examples from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, from the world wars, examples from the production of state publishers of the 50s and 80s and from the production of private publishers from the end of the 20th century. A number of art works from the collections of the Book Culture Department of the National Museum Library are original models for printing the covers created by prominent Czech artists. For example, works by Ondřej Sekora, Josef Lada, Josef Vodrážka, Jan Rambousek, Josef Liesler, Cyril Bouda, Václav Kabát, Jaroslav Hořánek, Dana Puchnarová, Václav Fiala and others are exhibited.

It also introduces the work of book artists and describes the pre-press preparation in the period before the onset of digitization. The original templates of the book covers are supplemented by samples of the author's printing linocut and woodcut blocks (matrices for printing covers, including color registration) and samples of books with covers selectively referring to the presented original templates for their printing.

The exhibition is intended for both adult and children's visitors and is aimed at both professionals and the general public. The professional public will especially appreciate the opportunity to view the originals of historical books, often provided with technical instructions for production and working notes. In addition to visually attractive exhibits, the general public can find a number of original book covers from their favorite leisure time or, on the contrary, compulsory reading.