Biography

Aleksandar Ćeklić is an artist and bookbinder devoted to traditional techniques, restoration, and unique hand-bound books.

Portrait of artist and bookbinder Aleksandar Ćeklić in his atelier

Aleksandar Ćeklić (Valjevo, 1965) is a Serbian applied artist known for artistic bookbinding. He graduated from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering in Belgrade. He is a member of the Association of Applied Arts Artists and Designers of Serbia (ULUPUDS).

Since 2008, he has led the Artistic Bookbinding workshop at the Faculty of Applied Arts (FPU) as part of the course Structure and Anatomy of the Book. He teaches the same programme at the College of Applied and Fine Arts in Belgrade.

He has practised artistic bookbinding since 1992, working on classical and modern artistic bindings, book design, and restoration. His bindings can be found in numerous collections in Serbia and abroad. He collaborates with the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Alongside his artistic practice, he is a researcher and the author of professional and scholarly texts. He has studied the library of Hilandar Monastery on several occasions and is one of the few specialists in the world devoted to the history and construction of Byzantine bindings. He reconstructed the bindings of the Miroslav Gospel and the Serbian Munich Psalter.

In 2008, he received the Gligorije Vozarović Award from the Belgrade City Library.

Professional articles

  • Aleksandar Ćeklić, “Who Was Nikodim — the Author of the Hilandar Service and Life of Saint Achillius,” Archaeographic Contributions, no. 46, National Library of Serbia, Belgrade, 2024. PDF edition
  • Aleksandar Ćeklić, “The Binding of the Gorički Zbornik,” On the Gorički Zbornik: Selected Papers, Podgorica–Belgrade, 2020.
  • Aleksandar Ćeklić, “Decorative Motifs on the Bindings of Hilandar Manuscripts,” Pedagogical Museum, Belgrade, 2019.
  • Aleksandar Ćeklić, “Trimming Serbian Medieval Books,” Biblionet 2018: Manuscript and Early Printed Books, Matica Srpska Library, Belgrade–Novi Sad, 2018.
  • Aleksandar Ćeklić, “An Overview of the History of Bookbinding up to the Twentieth Century,” Istok, nos. 11–12–13, Knjaževac, 2016–2017.
  • Aleksandar Ćeklić, “The Bogomil Binding — a Historical Forgery,” Archaeographic…