Internationalizing Czechoslovak Photography under State Socialism: The Book Series Umělecká fotografie, 1958–1968

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68378033%3A_____%2F25%3A00647371" target="_blank" >RIV/68378033:_____/25:00647371 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Internationalizing Czechoslovak Photography under State Socialism: The Book Series Umělecká fotografie, 1958–1968

Original language description

In 1958, the state publishing house SNKL(H)U/Odeon launched a series of small-format monographs on Czech, Slovak and foreign photographers, both past and present. Titled Umělecká fotografie (Artistic Photography), the series aimed to popularize photography as an art form among the general public. This article examines the series’ development during its peak publishing period between 1958 and 1968 and explores the various ways in which it sought to position Czechoslovak photography within an international context. Drawing on a transnational network, the series included both photographers from Eastern bloc countries such as Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the USSR, and from the West, to fuel its discussion of artistic photography as a primarily documentary form. This international outlook extended to exporting the series abroad: several titles were reissued in foreign languages, both through the Czech export-oriented publishing house Artia and in collaboration with Grossmann Publishers in New York. What these endeavors reveal about the state of photography under socialism further undermines the conventional East / West dichotomy of normative realism versus unrestricted formal experimentation. Instead, they highlight a process of co-construction: photography under state socialism shared with the West a commitment to the cultural valorization of the medium, as well as a documentary engagement with reality and a humanist approach to photographing mankind.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60401 - Arts, Art history

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2025

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Sešit pro umění, teorii a příbuzné zóny

ISSN

1802-8918

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

19

Issue of the periodical within the volume

39

Country of publishing house

CZ - CZECH REPUBLIC

Number of pages

42

Pages from-to

120-161

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-105035205187