Events
Identity – A Czech Graphic Design Love Story
with Nicholas Lowry, Michal Gregorini, Stephen Coles
Antiques Roadshow’s Nicholas Lowry joins us in person to screen the award-winning documentary, followed by a pop-up of Czech objects from Letterform Archive.
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The Film
In Identita (Identity), world-renowned auctioneer and Czech-American Nicholas Lowry flies from New York to Prague as a passionate collector to map out what shaped the Czech national identity. Our tartan-suited guide explores the work of Vojtěch Preissig, Alfons Mucha, and Ladislav Sutnar; tries the famous Pilsner beer; travels to South Moravia in search of the aesthetics of wine labels; and much more, all while rediscovering his own Czech roots.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Lowry and the film’s producer Michal Gregorini, moderated by Letterform Archive’s Associate Curator Stephen Coles (who played a part in Identita’s companion television series).
Czech Design at Letterform Archive
We’ll cap the evening with a special showing of Czech design objects from the Archive’s collection, some of which are featured in the film. It’s also a rare chance in this country to snag a copy of the film’s companion book, Identity.
Program
5:00pm — light food & drink
5:30pm — film screening (85 min)
7:00pm — discussion
7:30pm — intro to the Archive’s Czech collection
SPECIAL THANKS
We are pleased to welcome
Hon. Richard Pivnicka, Hon. Consul General of the Czech Republic
and Hon. Barbara Pivnicka, Hon. Consul of the Slovak Republic
who are providing with hors d’oeuvres, wine, and Czech beer
Nicholas Lowry
Nicholas D. Lowry (he/him) was born and raised in New York, where he is the third generation of a family of antiquarian book dealers. He is the president and chief auctioneer of Swann Galleries in New York, and is also the director of the auction house’s vintage posters department. Lowry, a graduate of Cornell University with a bachelor’s degree in history, is a seasoned expert on the history of graphic design and posters. An internationally recognised authority on vintage posters, he also appears on the television series PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. He is a consultant and the author of essays, articles, books and lectures on the subject. He lived in Prague from 1990 to 1994, contributed to the newspaper Prognosis and hosted a radio programme on Prague’s Radio 1. It was during this period that his lifelong passion for collecting historical Czech posters was born. Thanks to the combination of his profession, numerous personal collections and family history, he has curated a number of important international exhibitions on Czech posters in Europe and the USA. In 2001, he co-curated an exhibition at the Czech Centre in New York, Czech Posters Between the Wars, which was produced in cooperation with Petr Štembera and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague. He is also featured in the 2019 Canadian feature documentary Knihkupci (The Booksellers). He is a member of the advisory board of the Poster House Museum and a member of the board of directors of the National Arts Club in New York.
Michal Gregorini
Michal Gregorini (he/him) studied andragogy and personnel management at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University in Prague. Before graduating from SUPŠ in Prague’s Žižkov neighbourhood, he co-founded the Mowshe studio (1993), which focuses primarily on graphic design, creative concepts, and production for nonprofit organisations, public institutions, and businesses. He has won awards from Strategie weekly, Louskáčka, Zlatá pecka, Lemur, the annual award of the Czech Event Association, and the ADC Awards. He plays saxophone in the bands The Breakers, Viceband, Kytínští kanci and Jekyllovy slipy.
Stephen Coles
Stephen “Stewf” Coles (he/him), Letterform Archive’s Associate Curator & Editorial Director, joined the staff after serving on its Board of Directors since its inception. For over 20 years, he has been active in the type community, initially as a creative director at FontShop, and later as a consultant, connecting font makers with users. Stephen wrote the book The Anatomy of Type and co-founded the websites Typographica and Fonts In Use. He appears in a segment about type design in the Identita TV series which aired on Czech Television’s ČT Art channel in 2024.
