Vojtech Kubasta
Tony and the Circus Boy, (1961)
London: Bancroft & Co.
569
$ 550.00
Further images
Quarto. 8pp., + a pop-up at the end of the book designed by the acclaimed Czech artist and paper engineer Vojtech Kubasta. The book opens with the tale 'Tony and...
Quarto. 8pp., + a pop-up at the end of the book designed by the acclaimed Czech artist and paper engineer Vojtech Kubasta. The book opens with the tale "Tony and the Circus Boy," in which a child befriends a new classmate whose parents are circus performers. Illustrated with black & white head- and tailpieces, and whimsical depictions of circus acts inside the covers. With a stunning, colorful, three-dimensional pop-up of a circus big top, complete with musicians in an upper gallery, acrobats on trapezes, roaring lions and tigers, prancing horses, and the ringmaster standing in the center of it all. The book's three-fold board covers open flat, allowing the pop-up scene, which is nearly a foot tall, to stand up on its own. The scene also has numerous movable elements within it: when tabs are pulled, elephants bow and raise their heads, monkeys teeter on a ball, and a bear rides a bicycle pulled by a clown. In a 2014 New York Times feature on Kubasta, paper engineer Robert Sabuda, who was inspired by Kubasta's books at an early age, described Kubasta's work as unusual in that he was able to create astonishingly complex, detailed scenes with a single sheet of paper. His pop-up books are also known for their bold, rich color and were printed in Czechoslovakia on presses at the state-run publishing house Artia. A very fine copy bound in bright, illustrated boards depicting a performer surrounded by circus animals, as a tiger leaps through her hoop. In the original packaging, which includes a colorful advertisement for all twelve "Panascopic Model Books" designed by Kubasta. (Grimes, William, "Wizard Who Made Art Jump Off the Page," New York Times, Jan. 31, 2014).