The Art of Bookplates

A selection of works from our Vienna Secession Ex Libris Bookplates 1900–1925 collection—fabulous examples of European Modernism, telling interesting stories of the connections between artist and book owner, and the cultural lives of intellectuals in pre-war Austria-Hungary. A number of the designers are Austrian Jewish, Hungarian or Czech, who were profoundly affected by horrors of war: Antal Radó (1862–1944), a Hungarian journalist and translator committed suicide when Germany occupied Hungary; Josef Váchal (1884–1969), the Czech visionary, was traumatised by serving on the Italian front during World War I and he went into internal exile to avoid Nazi occupation in the 1940s; and Josef von Divéky (1887–1951), a Hungarian graphic artist and designer, had work confiscated from the Schlossmuseum Weimar and destroyed as part of the Nazi 'Degenerate Art' campaign.

VIEW THE FULL COLLECTION.