Title: Czech Photographic Avant-Garde, 1918-1948
Author: Vladimir Birgus
Publisher: MIT Press, 2002
Text by Vladimír Birgus; 311 pages, color and black and white illustrations
This photographic history begins with the founding of the independent Czechoslovakian state and ends with the emerging Communist regime. The images included in Czech Photographic Avant-Garde draw from a stellar range of work by luminaries such as Josef Sudek and Frantisek Drtikol, many previously unseen by scholars and general audiences alike. Published to coincide with the traveling exhibition Modern Beauty, this volume was the first of its kind to address the largely hidden body of work produced by Czech photographers from behind the Iron Curtain. The resulting book is a meticulously produced piece of scholarship on the first half of the 20th century, and a remarkably accessible introduction to a captivating period in photographic history.
