A zatím co válka. Sbornik. (And in the Meatime War)

Brno: Edice Ra (Rovnost), 1946 Large octavo 21x15 cm., wrappers, 61(4)pp. Cover and book design by Vaclav Zykmund. A colloquium of writings and art by the postwar surrealist group Ra. In the brief era following the liberation and restoration of Czechoslovakia and before the communist takeover, there was an upsurge of experiment and pioneering in the arts and literature. The Ra group was consisted of young surrealists connected with Karel Teige and the journal Kvart in the 1930s. They didn't accept psychic automatism, were more ironic and had a bent for self-parody, and didn't share the self-importance and pretense of the Paris surrealists. These Czech surrealists set the pattern of outsider art that would persist through the communist era. During the war they worked and published underground. This collection brings the principals together, with art, photography and writings both pre- and post-liberation by Josef Istler, Milan Korecek, Ludvik Kundera, Bohdan Lacina, Vilem Reichmann, Václav Tikal and Zykmund among others. An important document of the time, it is uncommon, with only three North American institutional holdings (Yale, MOMA, Getty).