Iva Knobloch specializes in modern design history and she is also involved in contemporary design projects in Czech Republic. She is the founder and editor of book series “Czech Design: Key Personalities”. In 2003, she curated traveling exhibition of Czech-American designer Ladislav Sutnar, see www.sutnar.cz, and edited several books of his work (Design in Action, 2003; Mental vitamines 2010; American Venus, 2011). Recently, Iva co-edited reprint of Czech design „samizdat“ 1989 Discussion, 2014; catalogue Vital Art Nouveau, 2013; and Design in Czech Lands 1900-2000 (in print). She teaches graphic design history in Academy of Art, Design and Architecture in Prague. In 2014, she was Fulbright scholar at MoMA, doing research on the topic of the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
While going through MoMA’s Czech holdings during my Fulbright Research Fellowship at the Museum, I came across a surprising finding: the first Czech objects ever acquired by MoMA were a glass tumbler and two bowls designed by a young student, Věra Lišková (1924–1979) circa 1947, when Czechoslovakia was still part of the industrialized Western world.…
