Pictoport

Dagmar Urbánková's picture book is a peephole into homes from around the world. The author delights in returning to forms of illustration used in books since Baroque times. In her work There Once Was a House, she played with an endlessly looping narrative, a principle she turns to here anew as the prints on fabric from markets, stores and small-town haberdasheries transform into a child’s portal to homes around the world. The colorful motifs of dwellings – from Mongolian yurts and Swiss cottages to skyscrapers in New York – become gateways to the homes and bedrooms of families in Prague, Alaska, Kenya, England and other far off lands. Although the world sometimes seems impossibly far away, it is nearer than we think if we but dream…