Graphic artists from Czechia have long excelled in the arcane art of making owner tags for books. The two most senior ex libris artists in my collection are both Czechs born in the 1880s in the Austro-Hungarian Empire who were most active in the independent Czechoslovakia of the interwar period. Jan Konupek was steeped in turn of the 19th century Symbolism and Surrealism, creating imaginative, mystical images like this 1939 book plate of Christ overseeing pressmen in a printshop. A school teacher from Moravia, Antonin Kamenik worked on ex libris with religious motifs in the 1940s for a single book plate collector, including this woodblock print portrait of the thorn-crowned Christ. The new small format pieces are now on view in the East European Ex Libris page gallery. (John Kohan)