This enormous and authoritative survey of Czech and Slovak photo publications commemorates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Czechoslovakia on October 28, 2018. It demonstrates the persistent tradition of superior artistic imagination and technical ingenuity that is uniquely and wonderfully Czech and Slovak. In the course of more than 1,000 years of existence, the Czech and Slovak people only experienced free nationhood between 1918 and 1938―and again after 1989. Finally living under their own rule, photographers and writers, typographers and book designers, graphic artists and printers were free to express a love of country and documented its landscapes, cities, national treasures, monuments and the life of its people with unflinching attention―thus forming their unique cultural identity, even during Nazi annexation and 40 years of communist occupation.

In nine chapters this comprehensive book explores over 800 publications from 1918 to 1989, highlighting the work of more than 250 photographers and graphic artists, including Frantisek Drtikol, Libor Fára, Jaromír Funke, Karel Hájek, Vladimír Hipman, Bohdan Holomícek, Tibor Honty, Karol Kállay, Josef Koudelka, Jan Lukas, Martin Martincek, Alphonse Mucha, Karel Plicka, Josef Prosek, Jaroslav Rössler, Pavel Stecha, Jindrich Streit, Jindrich Styrsky, Josef Sudek, Ladislav Sutnar, Karel Teige and Zdenek Tmej.