Jan Sobota

Jan Bohuslav Sobota (1 March 1939 – 2 May 2012) was a Czech-Swiss fine bookbinder. He is known for his often playful sculptural bindings that transform the book into a three-dimensional work of art.

Career Sobota was born on 1 March in Hromnice, Czechoslovakia. The son of a book collector, Sobota trained in Czechoslovakia as an apprentice in the Plzeň workshop of Karel Šilinger and graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts, Prague, in 1957. He completed his master's degree at the same institution in 1969, and in 1979, was declared "Meister der Einbandkunst" in Germany. Extensive Czech training in book conservation prepared him for positions as a book conservator at Case Western Reserve University and at the Bridwell Library at Southern Methodist University. With his wife Jarmila Sobota he established the Saturday's Book Arts Gallery, which moved with the couple. He was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Guild of Bookworkers in 2012.