[CZECH SURREALISM - SKUPINA RA] p.f. 1947 ["Pour féliciter", private publication issued as a New Year's greeting]

Overall typographic design by Vilém Reichmann. With five black-and-white reproductions of works by Skupina Ra members Josef Istler, Václav Zykmund, Bohdan Lacina, Vilém Reichmann and Václav Tikal and two texts by Ludvík Kundera and Zdeněk Lorenc. The wrapper incorporates a fotokalk by Koreček. Between 1943 and 48, and again after 1971, Koreček developed the technique of the "Fokalk", an acronym combining "photography" and "décalcomanie." Inspired by Vitězslav Nezval's surrealist decals, Kořeček deformed photographic plates using heat: "Der Fokalk ist ein Bild, gewonnen durch Projektion einer fokalisierten fotografischen Platte oder ihres auf Fotopapier fixierten Ausschnittes. Die fokalisierte fotografische Platte entsteht aus einem (beliebigen) Negativ, durch eine maximal eigenwillige Deformation des ursprünglichen Bildes nach Aufweichung der Emulsion (z.B. mit warmem Wasser). Die Bezeichnung Fokalk benutzte ich zum erstenmal im Jahr 1947" (Neusüss, Das Fotogramm in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 455). The photogram played an important role in the Czech interwar avant-garde, beginning with a fascination with Man Ray and his Rayographs. Within the Devětsil group, the photograph Jaroslav Rössler experimented with large format constructivist photograms that incorporated letter-like symbols and angular combinations. The Brno-based group Foto-skupina peti (f5) developed the idea of the Foto-fotogram, a combination of photography with photogram.

The fifth in the series of publications by "Edice Ra" and one of the rarest, printed in 100 copies.

The Ra Group was a Czech post-war surrealist formation that became active in the late 1930s, existed illegally during the German Protectorate, and held public exhibits in the late 1940s, before again being banned as an ideologically hostile movement by the Czechoslovak Communist government in 1948. Its core group included writers Zdeněk Lorenc and Ludvík Kundera (a cousin of Milan), and artists Josef Istler, Miloš Kořeček, Bohdan Lacina, Vilém Reichmann, Václav Tikal, and Václav Zykmund.

Although surrealism was forbidden both by the Fascist Protectorate and the Communist government, it was a highly productive influence in Czech post-war art and literature, and various members of Skupina Ra continued their work even after Socialist Realism became the officially mandated program. In the group's manifesto, which appears in Skupina Ra (1947), it distanced itself from "orthodox" and "analytic" interwar surrealism, especially that of Karel Teige's Surrealist Group, noting that "the terrible years of cultural isolation during the Protectorate and the total break from foreign avant-gardes brought about this state of affairs" (cited in Derek Sayer, 2013, p. 405). Skupina Ra wanted to break with the traditional heavy reliance on theory in surrealism and with its emphasis on automatic methods, instead viewing surrealism more broadly, "as the extreme essence and concentration of all lyricism" (Skupina Ra, 13).

As of November 2022, not in KVK, OCLC. Overall typographic design by Vilém Reichmann. With five black-and-white reproductions of works by Skupina Ra members Josef Istler, Václav Zykmund, Bohdan Lacina, Vilém Reichmann and Václav Tikal and two texts by Ludvík Kundera and Zdeněk Lorenc. The wrapper incorporates a fotokalk by Koreček. Between 1943 and 48, and again after 1971, Koreček developed the technique of the "Fokalk", an acronym combining "photography" and "décalcomanie." Inspired by Vitězslav Nezval's surrealist decals, Kořeček deformed photographic plates using heat: "Der Fokalk ist ein Bild, gewonnen durch Projektion einer fokalisierten fotografischen Platte oder ihres auf Fotopapier fixierten Ausschnittes. Die fokalisierte fotografische Platte entsteht aus einem (beliebigen) Negativ, durch eine maximal eigenwillige Deformation des ursprünglichen Bildes nach Aufweichung der Emulsion (z.B. mit warmem Wasser). Die Bezeichnung Fokalk benutzte ich zum erstenmal im Jahr 1947" (Neusüss, Das Fotogramm in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, p. 455). The photogram played an important role in the Czech interwar avant-garde, beginning with a fascination with Man Ray and his Rayographs. Within the Devětsil group, the photograph Jaroslav Rössler experimented with large format constructivist photograms that incorporated letter-like symbols and angular combinations. The Brno-based group Foto-skupina peti (f5) developed the idea of the Foto-fotogram, a combination of photography with photogram.

The fifth in the series of publications by "Edice Ra" and one of the rarest, printed in 100 copies.

The Ra Group was a Czech post-war surrealist formation that became active in the late 1930s, existed illegally during the German Protectorate, and held public exhibits in the late 1940s, before again being banned as an ideologically hostile movement by the Czechoslovak Communist government in 1948. Its core group included writers Zdeněk Lorenc and Ludvík Kundera (a cousin of Milan), and artists Josef Istler, Miloš Kořeček, Bohdan Lacina, Vilém Reichmann, Václav Tikal, and Václav Zykmund.

Although surrealism was forbidden both by the Fascist Protectorate and the Communist government, it was a highly productive influence in Czech post-war art and literature, and various members of Skupina Ra continued their work even after Socialist Realism became the officially mandated program. In the group's manifesto, which appears in Skupina Ra (1947), it distanced itself from "orthodox" and "analytic" interwar surrealism, especially that of Karel Teige's Surrealist Group, noting that "the terrible years of cultural isolation during the Protectorate and the total break from foreign avant-gardes brought about this state of affairs" (cited in Derek Sayer, 2013, p. 405). Skupina Ra wanted to break with the traditional heavy reliance on theory in surrealism and with its emphasis on automatic methods, instead viewing surrealism more broadly, "as the extreme essence and concentration of all lyricism" (Skupina Ra, 13).

As of November 2022, not in KVK, OCLC.