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April 6, 2006
New Posters from Winters Collection on Display
The display case outside the entrance to the Slavic Library finally has different posters from the Winters Collection on exhibit. They are posters by two of the Czech Republic's best-known graphic artists, Adolf Born (1930) and Stanislav Hóly (1943-1998).
Interestingly--or maybe not so interestingly, since the world of Czech graphic artists is a small one--both Hóly and Born studied at the Applied Arts Academy in Prague. Although a student of animation and cinematic puppetry, Hóly is perhaps most recognized for his illustrations in children's books. As the creator of Mr. Pip, the main character in a corpus of literature (and also in animation) for children in which stories are told purely through pictures, Hóly arrives at a kind of book or paper version of animation--his drawings are colorful, lively, and full of expression. Here is a snapshot of Mr. Pip in an animated context.
Born, who is still alive and active in art, pursued caricature and newspaper illustration at the Applied Arts Academy. His cartoon drawings in newspapers and magazines were his first claim to fame. But a stricter political climate in the early 1970s in Czechoslovakia forced Born to focus his creativity on other kinds of art, such as animation, graphics, book illustrations, and ex libris (bookplates). Born is famous for creating anthropomorphic portraits (woman as vessel steered by man or woman as house with many floors and rooms), and often the result is a playful surrealness. Here are several examples of Born's art (from an online exposition of the artist's works--mini-images on the right), as well as more information about him.
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