PZO Artia was a government-run company in Prague, Czechoslovakia, active during the Cold War and best known for publishing richly illustrated children’s books, particularly fairy tales.

History

Artia was originally founded as a joint-stock company specializing in the import and export of cultural goods. In 1953, it was transformed into a Podnik zahraničního obchodu (PZO), meaning “Foreign Trade Enterprise,” becoming the state monopoly for the export and import of cultural products. A publishing division was later incorporated into the enterprise.

During the fifteen years leading up to 1967, Artia published approximately 3,000 titles. These included books on art, general subjects, popular science, and children’s literature, which were exported to 26 countries in 17 languages. In addition to books, Artia exported a wide range of cultural goods such as periodicals, music, records, gramophones, works of art, postage stamps, coins, teaching aids, antiquities, Bohemian garnets, cartographic materials, silver costume jewelry, folk art, and musical instruments.

From the 1950s onward, Artia also exported long-playing records released by the state-owned label Supraphon, primarily classical music but also pop, jazz, folk music, and spoken-word recordings. Occasionally, recordings from the label Panton were included as well.

The British publisher Paul Hamlyn held exclusive rights to distribute Artia’s English-language publications in the United Kingdom. During the 1950s and 1960s, Czechoslovak printers gained an international reputation for high-quality gravure color printing using four-color offset technology. In 1960, Hamlyn published Cookery in Colour, designed in-house and printed by Artia in Czechoslovakia. The initial print run of 50,000 copies sold quickly and was reprinted several times annually for many years.

Artia also designed and produced affordable reprint editions and coffee-table books for Spring Books, a London-based imprint of the Paul Hamlyn Group. Additionally, it created and printed several book series for the British publisher Bancroft & Co., including Westminster Books and the pop-up series Panascopic Model Books, all produced in Czechoslovakia.

Following the political transformations in Czechoslovakia and other COMECON countries around 1990, Artia became obsolete. The enterprise was formally liquidated in 1994.

Reference List

Artia (publisher). (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved January 19, 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artia_(publisher)