Josef Moucha

Jan Lukas

Jan Lukas' credo--"To watch what interests me and to keep it alive, in the hope that many others will also find it interesting"--is well borne out in this retrospective book. A classic photographer of the Czech school, author of Prague Diary, 1938-65 and The Islanders, Lukas here tallies up 60 years of experience.

Leif Lyneborg

Milan Chvála

The Horse Flies of Europe (Diptera, Tabanidae)

Alphonse Mucha

Jiří Řapek

Though Alfons Mucha (1860-1939) achieved lasting international acclaim as an Art Nouveau painter, graphic designer, and decorator, his outstanding photography is not as well known. His photographic sketchbook and personal visual diary, comprising photographs from the mid-1880s until the end of his life, constitutes a unique and profound artistic statement. This mosaic of captured moments reveals the intimate and personal basis of both Mucha's own life as an artist and the time period in which he lived. The behind-the-scenes glimpses of his studio provided here prove that Mucha--the creator of the ideal of Art Nouveau beauty--was one of the pioneers of the classic nude in Czech photography. This is the first time such a large selection of Mucha's extensive photographic work has been assembled as a book. Many of the photos in this book, never before published, reveal hitherto unknown aspects of Mucha's work, which will be of interest to the general reader and the photographic connoisseur alike.

Alfons Mucha

Photographer's Diary 1928-1954 immerses the reader in the distinctive vision of Josef Jindřich Šechtl (1877-1954). For this photographer, the making of compositionally balanced and technically precise images was not a sufficient objective in itself. Rather, Šechtl succeeded in using his 35mm Leica to capture the fleeting nature of private and public social events in all their particularity of time and place. Šechtl had a keen eye for the often unnoticed and overlooked, while selecting subject matter to reflect the changing tides of historical destiny sweeping across his world. Living in the South Bohemian town of Tábor, Šechtl has been overlooked by historians due to their tendency to concentrate on practitioners from major urban areas. Šechtl & Voseček Museum of Photography has been assembling and disseminating the photographs of the Šechtl family and those of their contemporaries over five generations, and Photographer's Diary 1928-1954 at long last brings Josef Jindřich Šechtl’s work to the public's attention. An introductory essay by Josef Moucha situates Šechtl in the wider context of world photography. Deník fotografa 1928–1954 oslovuje osobitostí vidění Josefa Jindřicha Šechtla (1877–1954). Autorovi nestačilo uspokojit očekávání technicky a kompozičně precizním snímkem. Zajímalo ho nekonvenční komentování doby. Projevuje se volbou motivů i letmým podáním záběrů kinofilmovou kamerou Leica. Rozhodující předností je subjektivita postřehů a soustavné proměňování osudu ve vědomí. Historiografie napojená na velká centra dlouho táborského tvůrce zanedbávala. Nicméně rod Šechtlů vytváří a šíří fotografické památky na život svůj i svých současníků pátou generaci. Studie Josefa Mouchy vřazuje Josefa Jindřicha Šechtla do odpovídajících světových souvislostí.

Josef Moucha

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