A Small Progress Report

These last few weeks have been a busy time for me. As usual, I have several projects underway, but I also had to get ready for this year's research trip to Prague and then get settled in.
Image acquisition for Magnetic Woman is moving along, although never as quickly as I'd like (each month I hope that I will finally wrap up this phase of the book!). Just prior to leaving the US, I discovered that the library of the Art Institute of Chicago has some of what I was looking for, so I hurriedly made an appointment to go up there. In recent years, the Art Institute has acquired numerous examples of Czech modernist books and journals--they now have a real trove--and the librarians were very helpful. I was able to take my own study photographs of all sorts of things plus order reproduction-quality photos of some items for the book.
After arriving in Prague, I set out to obtain copies of photos of Toyen and other members of the Czech avant-garde. Quite a few have been published in the past, but not always with clear indications of their provenance. I knew, however, that the Památník národního pisemnictví (literary archive) would have some and that the UPM (design museum) would also be a good place to inquire. The Památník was able to offer me a selection of photos they had already scanned, plus when I went to their central depository in Litoměřice and rooted through Vítězslav Nezval's personal photos, I saw other interesting options. For the most part it must be said that Nezval's snapshots of his friends are small and not terribly clear, but I did find a more professionally done photo from an event that struck me as worth using in the book. Nezval's photo stash also included a set of entertaining pictures of him on an outing with Roman Jakobson, Jan Mukařovský, and a young woman who was very cozy with Nezval, and as Nezval, Jakobson, and Mukařovský all figure in my book, I was tempted to include one of these photos. However, there was not a specific one that was really quite right for my chapter, so with regret I passed on this even though I would have enjoyed showing that Mukařovský had a less serious side than one might gather from his scholarly work.
The UPM, meanwhile, is preparing a digital file of one of their photos for me.
So--there's progress, although I'm not happy about museums that don't respond to my inquiries.