Martin Martinček belongs to the most significant personalities of the Slovak photography of the 20th century.  He was the only Slovak photographer who created works of paramount significance in the field of fine art and documentary photography. 
He was born on January 30, 1913 in Liptovský Peter, graduated from legal studies at Comenius University in Bratislava (1937) and worked as an advocate and later as a judge.  During liberating of Czechoslovakia in 1945, he helped with formation of new state administration bodies, and after the war, he worked at the Commission for Finance and then as a chairman of the Committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic.  After February 1948, he faced unjust accusations, was imprisoned for a short time and in 1951 forcibly evicted from Bratislava together with his wife, painter Ester Fridrichová-Martinčeková. He settled in his native Liptov region. At first, he was employed as a worker and only in the second half of the 1950s he started to take pictures more intensively.  However, he won recognition very quickly and worked as a freelance photographer already in 1961. 
Since the 1960s he was implementing his primary intention – to create a “fine art dictionary of Liptov region country” through numerous photographic cycles and later also in publications. He took pictures within a quite restricted area, did not leave Liptov region. He depicted the country and its inhabitants universally, on various visual levels. In his photographs he gave life to inanimate nature – he found magic, anthropomorphic images in details of sawn wood, flowing water, mud and also in ice. In numerous shots reminding of sculptural reliefs he also captured a shape of Liptov region country marked by human work, typical, that time still prevailing wooden dwellings, working instruments and especially people who did not resemble  “builders of socialism”, quite the other way, they embodied rather fundamental human and also spiritual or Christian values which were endangered that time.  Thanks to this, a “special symbiosis of the country and people, precious rudimentary unity of a style, special myth to which we answer” was born (Milan Rúfus).
M. Martinček was a holder of several prizes and awards and moreover, he was the first Slovak photographer who was awarded a state professional award – the Meritorious Artist title. He died on May 1, 2004 in Liptovský Mikuláš.
                                                                                                                                                                                 Aurel Hrabušický