Alphabet

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Alphabet by Vítezslav Nezval (1900-1959) is widely recognized today as a consummate Czech contribution to European modernism and a unique distillation of the creative spirit of the 1920s. Published originally in 1926, it is a composite of experimental poetry, modern dance, and photomontage typography, by the poet Vítezslav Nezval, dancer Milca Mayerová, and typographer Karel Teige. This idiosyncratic and idiomatic work transports the reader-viewer through the discipline and fantasy of the modern age. The contributions of Karel Teige, the leading spokesperson for Devetsil and avant-garde ideas in interwar Czechoslovakia, has secured the book international fame in recent years. Teige's original layout, designed to create an optical language, a system of signs capable of embodying words in graphic figures, has been preserved in this facsimile edition.