Martin Benka - Odev mojho ludu (Slovak-English Book with Studies of Slovak National Costumes)

"The studies of traditional Slovak costume form a special chapter in the body of work of the artist Martin Benka. Seventy-nine of them are in the collections of the Slovak National Museum in Martin and Martin Benka Museum and some more can be found with private collectors. The earliest ones date back to the 1930s, the latest are dated 1954.

Despite the fact that they had been created in the course of twenty-odd years during which Benka's painterly style was still in development and subject to changes, their formal aspect changed very little. One may say that apart from the small details they all show almost identical "realistic"style of the author existing in the structure of his work as well established, practically void of the signs of evolution, and a few show some features of Benka's consummate "monumentalized" style," writes Katarina Bajcurova, one of authors of the publication about the studies of traditional Slovak costume in the body of work of Slovak artist Martin Benka.

The publication is divided into two main parts: text and reproductions. There are more than 150 reproductions, biographical data, photographs, list of exhibitions and expositions, list of reproductions and Slovak-English vocabulary.

Text is written by Katarina Bajcurova, who is an expert on the modern Slovak painting art, and by Slovak ethnographer Mojmir Benza - an expert on the traditional Slovak costumes. Text is both in Slovak and English languages.