Karel Martens: Small Prints

This publication presents a collection of previously unpublished monoprints by Karel Martens, made between 2014 and 2022. These highly personal works—the same compelling geometric compositions that animate our celebrated Karel Martens yearly calendars—are faithfully reproduced at their original dimensions and printed with meticulous attention using fluorescent inks that echo the originals. An experimental exercise in multi-layered offset printing has yielded two distinct leporello covers, each embodying Martens' rigorous yet playful visual language.

This publication reveals the intimate creative practice of one of graphic design's most significant voices. The prints, simultaneously mathematical and expressive, exist as visual studies where textual elements accentuate abstract forms and deliberate repetitions create rhythm across each page. The book itself becomes an object of contemplation—its material presence inseparable from the work it contains.

Publisher: Roma Publications.

When Karel Martens began studying art in the late 1950s, graphic design did not exist as its own course of study. Today, he is widely recognized as one of the most important practitioners of that very discipline, as well as a highly influential figure in the visual culture of the Netherlands.

Part of our Karel Martens collection.