overview about the place The Trade Fair Palace was in its time the largest building of its kind in the world, and Prague’s first building in a new style – Functionalism. During the First Republic, this palace was used primarily to serve the needs of trade fair exhibitions. For Alphonse Mucha it acquired profound meaning: the completed cycle of the Slav Epic i.e. all 20 canvasses was presented to the Prague public for the first time there, in the Great Hall. This took place in the autumn of 1928 on the occasion of the celebration of ten years of independence of the Czechoslovak republic. more about the place The Slav Epic exhibit was treated with great regard, the Great Hall was transformed into an autumn orchard, where paths sprinkled with sand led around the paintings. During the Nazi occupation, the Trade Fair Palace became sadly infamous as the massing-point for Jews sent to the concentration camps, later serving as an administrative building and suffering a major fire in 1974. Since 1995 it has been the Prague seat of the National Gallery. Their collections include Mucha’s portrait of Josephina Crane Bradley as Slavia, his oil painting ‘ The Czech Heart’ and a number of Mucha’s poster designs.