Karel Plicka

Following his graduation at the Teachers Institute in Hradec Králové (1909–1913), Plicka studied violin and music theory privately in Prague and Berlin.

[3] During his travels, Plicka also visited exiled Slovaks in Romania, Austria, Yugoslavia, and the United States.

In the late 1920s, Plicka began using a camera on his travels and contributed photographs to the Prague illustrated weekly Pestrý týden.

In 1938, he founded the courses of photography and cinematography at the Škola umeleckých remesiel (School of Applied Arts) in Bratislava.

However, Plicka left FAMU in 1950 due to health issues, and devoted himself mainly to landscape and architectural photography.

During his life, Plicka received the highest state awards, such as Řád práce (Order of Work) (1954), National Artist (1968), Prize for the Best Book of the Year (1971), National Prize of the Slovak Socialist Republic (1975) and Order of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (in memoriam, 1991).