MODERN CZECH ARTISTS - 18 PF Pour Féliciter ARTWORKS - SIGNED & LTD 1987-1989
18 ARTWORKS, PF POUR FELICITER ILLUSTRATED ART GREETINGS, and LIMITED EDITION PRINTS, by a number of CONTEMPORARY CZECH ARTISTS. The items are all from the collection of Marvin Lipofsky, American glass artist, and instructor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California College of Arts and Crafts, where he was responsible for training many studio artists. Almost all are signed and/or inscribed. Some have a limitation. From what I can determine, most are primarily glass artists
I cannot make out the signatures of all the artists. The items are:
5 by Eva Vlasakova - 3 signed, one with the inscription "You left without a word";
3 by Karel Vanura - 2 signed; 1 print by Ivo Rozsypal; 1 signed small print in a signed card by Bohumil Elias; 5 lovely lithograph prints all signed in an indecipherable (by me) hand;
1 limited signed print of a "girl", with indecipherable signature;
1 limited signed print 28/100, inscribed to Marvin Lipofsky in English but the signature is again too difficult to figure; 1 Pour Feliciter 1987 card signed.
All the items are in generally GOOD condition, folds from mailing, signs of handling, overall solid and bright.
About Czech PF Pour Feliciter greetings (from a knowledgeable Bohemian on the Internet):
******The Czech letters P-F ,"pé-efka", do not stand for Czech words but actually two French words "pour féliciter", which means to congratulate. It is a way of wishing luck in the New Year. In the Czech Republic PF greeting cards are often sent out a month before Christmas as part of a joint holiday (Christmas and New Year) greeting. The PF greeting is almost exclusively Czech; not even the French use it. The origin of this phrase in the Czech language is actually a total mystery and often disputed. One theory says that it was first used centuries ago when Czech noblemen spoke French as part of their "higher education". While French did not survive, the greeting did. One really big problem is that if Czechs use this greeting internationally, especially for business, nobody has a clue what it means.******
About MARVIN LIPOFSKY (from Wikipedia):
******Marvin Bentley Lipofsky, b.1938 d.2016, was an American glass artist. He was a central figure in the dissemination of the American Studio Glass Movement, introducing it to California through his tenure as an instructor at the University of California, Berkeley and the California College of Arts and Crafts. Lipofsky was one of the first American glass artists to travel to Czechoslovakia [now the Czech Republic], where a studio glass movement had arisen in the 1950s. This would be the first of many trips. He became well known and collaborated with numerous artists. Lipofsky's work has been collected by many public museums and institutions worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.******