Iva Knobloch is an art historian, exhibition curator, and editor of publications focusing on applied arts and design from the 19th to the 21st centuries. She studied art history at the Faculty of Arts at Charlet University in Prague, and since 1989 has worked at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague (curator of the collection of applied graphics and photography, chief curator, currently head of the Design Centre), and lectures externally at the Academy of Applied Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague on the history of graphic design since 2005. She has participated as a curator in significant international presentations of Czech applied art and design (Czech Art Deco Praha, Padua 1995; Prague Art Nouveau, Brussels 1998; Poetry and Ecstasy, Amsterdam, Frankfurt 2000). In 2000, she headed the teams for the new permanent collections in both the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Trade Fair Palace. From 2000 to 2003, she managed an international research team examining the Czech and American work of Ladislav Sutnar, supported by the Getty Research Fellowship, which ended with a travelling European exhibition and several publications between 2003 and 2011 (Ladislav Sutnar Praha-New York, Ladislav Sutnar v textech, Americké Venuše). For these activities, she received the Czech National Design Award and the Josef Krása Prize in 2003. In 2012, she launched a series of publications at the Museum of Decorative Arts, “Design-Profily-Osobnosti” (Design-Profile-Personality, 6 volumes: Vojtěch Preissig, Eva Eisler, Václav Cigler, Oldřich Rosenbaum, Hana Podolská, František Pečený). In 2014, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in their design and architecture collection. In 2016 she edited with Radim Vondráček the first synoptic publication on Czech design history, Design v českých zemích 1900-2000, focusing specifically on the institutions behind modern design. In 2019, she prepared a series of exhibitions and publications on design in the 20th century for the Museum of Decorative Arts (Courage and Risk/Odvaha a risk). From 2018 to 2022, she supervised the grant project of the Czech Technology Agency for the development of museum furniture in cooperation with the production firm mmcité, culminating in the exhibition and publication Posaďte se! [Take a Seat!]. In 2019 and 2022, she organized the Czech exhibition at the International Triennale of Design and Architecture in Milan and edited its catalogues (Lithopy, Out of Power Tower 2019, Casa immaginaria – Living in a Dream 2022). From 2018 to 2022 she lead a team research project focused on the Czechoslovak Werkbund supported by The Czech Science Foundation, which resulted in a publication and exhibition in 2024 (The Czechoslovak Werkbund 1914–1948, Movement for Housing Reform).
