The portfolio Modern Czech Photography (Moderní česká fotografie) is a rare and powerful body of work by some of the most important mid-century Czech photographers. Featuring such masters as Jaromír Funke and Josef Sudek, giants in the history of modernism, the portfolio holds special historic importance because it was published in 1943, during World War II and the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. The portfolio is a recent gift to MAG by the museum’s director, Jonathan Binstock, and his wife, Ann.
Modern Czech Photography is intended to showcase the work of prominent mid-century Czech photographers, as well as to spread and promote the notion of photography as a fine art. It was produced with great attention to detail in the selection of artists, images, materials, design, and construction. Today, institutions such as the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and the Olomouc Museum of Art, Moravia, Czech Republic house examples of the portfolio in their permanent collections. Of the 50 that were planned, the number of portfolios that were actually completed and that are still extant today is unknown.