Visit Czechoslovakia! The Stories of Czech and Slovak Travel Posters

The Czech Center New York presents Visit Czechoslovakia! The Stories of Czech and Slovak Travel Posters. This exhibition of original travel posters from the collection of Nicholas D. Lowry offers a graphic journey filled with stories and nostalgia that explores the dramatic history of twentieth-century Czechoslovakia.

Since the era of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, travel posters invite visitors to discover the Czech lands. These designs, with their bold colors and compelling imagery, promote medieval towns, striking landscapes, natural wonders, cultural aspects, castles, ski mountains, spa towns, and more. They invite viewers to dream, eliciting a longing for faraway places and the desire to travel there.

They are also an unexpected archive of collective memory, reflecting the era, ethos, and political orientations of the times in which they were created—a lens through which to see contemporary trends in areas such as fashion and technology.

The project is accompanied by the publication Visit Czechoslovakia! The Stories of Czech and Slovak Travel Posters.

Curated by Nicholas D. Lowry