FREE PRINT HUB
While a book is always a journey that opens doors to other worlds and offers encounters with the unknown, a bookplate is the key to those doors. It is a small emblem that keeps the book’s owner’s secret and, at the same time, tells the story of the artist who created it.
The exhibition invites you to travel across time and styles, personal codes, and universal images. In every bookplate, you can recognize yourself—the one who seeks and discovers, who preserves and passes on. After all, even the smallest mark can open a door to great discoveries.
The bookplate (or ex-libris) is one of the most enduring yet least noticeable elements of book culture. Its name derives from the Latin ex libris—“from the books”—and it was originally used to identify the owner. Taking shape in Europe in the second half of the 15th century, alongside the spread of printmaking, the bookplate evolved from a mark of ownership to an independent graphic genre. It became more complex, transforming into a type of “portrait”—not an external one, but a symbolic one—and thus an integral part of book culture.
Since the late 19th century, the bookplate has experienced a resurgence, expanding beyond its original function to become an object of collecting, exhibition, and artistic experimentation.
The 20th century brought us bookplates that reflect social change. In various contexts, they reflect shifting notions of ownership, personality, and cultural identity.
Today, the bookplate serves a double purpose. On the one hand, it maintains a connection with the book as a material object and still acts as a symbol. On the other hand, it has become established as an autonomous work of small-scale graphic art. Often, it is no longer pasted into a book, but continues to engage with its idea: memory, belonging, and the reading experience. Its relevance lies in this duality. The bookplate has become a form that combines a mark of ownership, a visual code, and a person’s self-image.
The project is implemented by the community of the Free Print Hub, a space where print graphics exist as a lively practice that is constantly evolving and bringing people genuine handcrafted beauty.
The exhibition features works by Hennadii Puhachevskyi, Arkadii Puhachevskyi, Kostiantyn Kalynovych, and Roman Romanyshyn, along with other Ukrainian graphic artists working in this medium today.