Viktor Oliva-Designer of the Everyday Life : The life and work of an artist on the brink of the 19th century
Abstract
The book was published on the occasion of the 155th anniversary of birth of Viktor Oliva, who became famous at the turn of the century as a painter, designer, illustrator and poster designer. He worked for famous Prague publishing houses (Topic, Otto, Vilímek) and he achieved the new dawn of the so-called "beautiful book".
Like other artists of his generation (Marold, Mucha, Mašek, etc.), he studied in Munich and Paris, from where he brought to Bohemia not only a lot of new creative ideas, but also a fondness of the bohemian lifestyle. Mirroring the current in other European capitals, it was the bohemian artists who, in the turn of the century Prague, produced a metropolitan culture of visual arts which Oliva helped to develop.
This is the first monography on the life and work of this author.