ABECEDA

Vitezslav Nezval
ABECEDA

Photographs: Karel Paspa

Text: Vitezslav Nezval

Publisher: Nakladem J. Otto,

57 pages

Year: 1926

Price: 1500 €

Comments: Softcover under illustrated dustjacke, 30,2 x 23,3 cm. First edition. Illustrated with 25 black / white Photomontages and Typography by Karel Teige from Paspa's Photographs. In good condition other some scratch on jacket and a small part missing affecting a few pages inside.

Written by Vitezslav Nezval in 1922, the 24-poem sequence ABECEDA (Alphabet) is an important landmark of the Czech avant garde for several reasons. Firstly, it takes as its subject the very basis of poetry, the letters of the alphabet, depicting each in brief, playful stan-zas. Secondly, in 1926 the famous Czech dancer Milda Mayerová turned the texts into a series of choreographed movement pieces, which were directed by Jith Frejka for the Liberated Theatre. And thirdly, also in 1926, ABECEDA was published as an illustrated book designed by the leading Czech graphic designer and architect, Karel Teige.

In Malerei Fotografie Film (Painting Photography Film) Moholy-Nagy defined a new Constructivist art form, a combination of text and photography that he called 'typofoto'. Teige's collaboration with Nezval and Mayerová - and also the photographer Kerel Paspa - is a classic 'typofoto' book, a Constructivist alphabet, and what might in retrospect be termed one of the first Conceptual artists' books.