Zena doma (Woman at Home) (Catalogue for an exhibition)
Zdeněk Rossmann
Czech, 1905–1984
1929
A 1929 letterpress exhibition catalogue cover by Zdeněk Rossmann that uses bold typography and photomontage to stage a tension between modern leisure and domestic domesticity.
A shock of contrast—the oversized, cropped legs and tennis racket float against a deep black field while the title ŽENA DOMA slices diagonally across the page, and a tiny, woodcut-like scene of a woman at a stove is tucked into the corner, forcing two conflicting images of womanhood to collide.
Rooted in the interwar Czech avant-garde, this piece brought photomontage and modern typographic composition into mass-printed design, both advancing visual modernism and commenting on changing social roles for women.
Medium
Letterpress
Dimensions
9 x 6" (23 x 15.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Jan Tschichold Collection, Gift of Philip Johnson
Accession
858.1999
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
