Product Description

Jaroslav Andel’s Avant-Garde Page Design 1900–1950 demonstrates the indebtedness of today’s visual aesthetic to the experimental page design of the historical avant-garde. The book presents a richly illustrated survey of groundbreaking work created by avant-garde artists and page designers during the early part of the 20th century. It shows how page design emerged as highly sophisticated form of art in its own right, and directly or indirectly, prefigured the communication revolution we are undergoing today.

With images by more 250 individual artists, the book chronicles the history of modern page design and presents vivid examples drawn from the major movements of the era: Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, Constructivism, and Surrealism. Illustrations include designs by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, Alekandr Rodchenko, Lázló Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Jan Tschichold—as well as the lesser-known figures whose efforts shaped the printed page as we know it today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1978113 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04
• Original language: German, French, Spanish, English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

From the Publisher
With networked computers gradually replacing printed pages as the primary carriers of information, we are witnessing a full-scale transition in the way we communicate. In order to more fully understand the cultural significance of this technological revolution, artists, designers, and scholars are beginning to re-examine the history of printed material. Andel’s scholarship shows how even the earliest experimenters coined innovations that remain powerful conventions of page design today, and how some, such as El Lissitzky, actually predicted the rise of electronic media.

About the Author
Jaroslav Andel received his Ph.D. in Art History from Charles University and his M.F.A. in Photography from the Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of the Performing Arts in Prague. As a visual artist in the1970s he had several one-person exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions of photo-based and conceptual art in Europe, Asia and the United States. In 1982 he moved from Prague to New York City, and has since organized exhibitions of Czech visual art, including Czech Modernism 1900-1945 at The Museum of Fine Art in Houston and The Avant-Garde Book 1900-1945 at Franklin Furnace in New York. He is currently working on the exhibition The Invention of the Modern Self: The Body, the Psyche, and the Spirit, 1850-1930.