This year the competition for the Most Beautiful Czech Books has
reached its 47th year. It was traditionally organized by
the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic together with the
Museum of Czech Literature and, just as it was last year, it is to
be held again in the Moravian Gallery, where it will coincide for a
short period in the Governor's Palace with the great international
event of graphic design - the Brno Biennial.
This year 124 publishing houses sent in a total of 220 titles to
the competition. This is slightly fewer than last year which for
the first time may be due to the poorer performance of the economy
and changes in tax legislation. However, there was no visible
impact on the quality of the competition entries. The technical
committee again put forward all of the books which were received to
the second round, which proves the high standard of Czech book
publishing.
The competition jury, which was presided over this year by the
illustrator/designer Barbara Šalamounová, brought together leading
art theorists such as Helena Koenigsmarková and Roman Musil, with
acclaimed book designers such as Martin Dyrynk and Petr Krejzek.
The spectrum of the book entries was wide and the jury commented on
the blurring of the boundaries between some book categories, in
particular specialized literature, art books and catalogues.
A breath of fresh air and hope for the future is, as always,
brought by the students' competition for the Arno Sáňka Award, this
year with 23 entries from four schools of art. Apart from this
category, students have already won this year the SČGU Hollar Award
for illustration and the Vojtěch Preissig Award from the Czech
Bibliophile Society. The successful students attend the Academy of
Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, the Institute of Art and
Design of the West Bohemia University in Plzeň, the Faculty of Art
and Design in Ústí nad Labem and the Graphic College in
Prague.
The exhibition will display all of the books placed from first to
third place in the following categories: Academic and Specialized
Literature, Novels, Literature For Children and Young People, Text
Books, Art Books, Catalogues, as well as the awardees of the
individual prizes: the Arno Sáňka Award, the SČUG Hollar Award for
illustration, the Typodesignclub Award for graphic design and the
Publishers' Union Award. The awarded books are accompanied by the
short listed books from which the jury made the selection.
The competition for the Most Beautiful Czech Books does not nearly
reflect the whole of Czech book publishing, In bookshops one can
still come across sloppily designed books with clichéd or even
kitschy covers. It does, however, provide a model and sets an
example for those who want to publish interesting books with a high
standard of design, and significantly contributes to the
advancement of Czech book publishing.
Prepared by Hana Karkanová using materials from the Museum of
Czech Literature and the exhibition catalogue.
