The exhibition at Galerie Zdeněk Sklenář establishes a connection between four important personalities of Czech and world culture in one unique undertaking.

The presentation of the newly published Czech version of Gitanjali is a tribute to Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali author who wrote this famous collection of poetry, the Czech translator Dušan Zbavitel, the graphic artist behind the publication Zdeněk Ziegler, and Karel Malich, who created the accompanying artworks. The preparations for publishing Gitanjali (translated as “A Handful of Songs”) were underway at Galerie Zdeněk Sklenář for twelve years, and Karel Malich created forty-two original pastels for the book. The result is forty-two bibliophile editions that differ from each other only in the different work by Karel Malich that is bound into each copy. In addition to this special numbered edition, a second version of the book, which does not contain an original pastel but instead includes reproductions of all of the pastels Malich created for Gitanjali, will be exhibited for the first time.

The book has been published on the occasion of the ninetieth birthday of the outstanding graphic artist Zdeněk Ziegler, with whom Galerie Zdeněk Sklenář has been collaborating for more than thirty years. Ziegler significantly contributed to the overall high aesthetic quality of the publication, in which he has masterfully used typographic possibilities and combined them with the colour originals.

Along with the mentioned books, several hanging and wall sculptures by Karel Malich, which were inspired by the aforementioned pastels, will also be exhibited.

The original architectural design for the exhibition is the work of Lukáš Machalický.

Zdeněk Sklenář Gallery