Art is abstraction

Art is abstraction. In the case of Czech abstract art of the 1960s, it was a book cover. Abstract book covers were mostly created by painters and sculptors who belonged to the unofficial artistic elite with their paintings, sculptures and objects. Although the works were small in format, they were significant in that they had the same expression, identical morphology and similar colors, which also distinguished their free work. The publication critically deals with simultaneously developing media: book, painting, photography, sculpture and object. All important and at the time new artistic trends, such as Czech informal, constructive tendency, new sensibility, op-art, kineticism or lettrism, were the basis on which the broad spectrum of contemporary progressive art grew. More than 350 reproductions present the works of book creators, such as Jiří Balcar, Zdenek Seydl, Milan Grygar, Zbyněk Sekal, Andrej Bělocvetov, and free artists, such as Stanislav Kolíbal, Radek Kratina, Zdenek Sýkora, Jan Kotík, Ludmila Padrtová, Aleš Veselý, Vladimír Boudník, Hugo Demartini, Jan Kubíček, but also photographers such as Jan Svoboda, Jaroslav Rössler, Ivo Přeček, Čestmír Krátký, Alois Nožička, Vilém Reichmann and many others.