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About Czech-French photographer, Josef KOUDELKA (b. 1938, in Boskovice)
Josef KOUDELKA completed his education as an aeronautical engineer at the University of Prague from 1961 to 1967. At the same time he began to work as a reportage photographer. From 1965 to 1970 he was a theater photographer. In the second half of the 1960s, he created his cycles about the life of the Roma in Czechoslovakia, whose lives he portrayed from an inside perspective and family closeness. His black-and-white photographs stand out because of their pronounced graphic abstraction; they were formative for generations of photojournalists. At the same time, they speak of a deep humanism. In particular, however, his photographs during the Soviet occupation of the CSSR in 1968 made him known to a broad public in the West as well. The photographs forwarded to Elliott ERWITT, then president of the Magnum photo agency, were published on the first anniversary of the invasion - for his protection under the abbreviation 'P.P.' for 'Prague Photographer'. The Overseas Press Club then awarded the 'anonymous photographer' the Robert Capa Gold Medal. In 1970 Josef KOUDELKA traveled to Western Europe at the invitation of Magnum to document the lives of Roma groups and never returned to Prague. He settled in London and worked for Magnum. In 2015 he was awarded the Dr. Erich Salomon Prize of the German Society for Photography. From 1980 he lived in Paris; in 1987 he became a French citizen. Since 1990 Josef KOUDELKA has been living temporarily in Prague again.
Photo books by, with participation of and about the work of Josef KOUDELKA
- 'Gypsies' (1975, 1992, 2011, 2019); 'British Image 2' (1976); 'Exils' (1988, 1997, 2014); 'Zeitblende. Fünf Jahrzehnte MAGNUM Photographie' (1989); 'Chaos' (1991, 1999, 2005); 'Reconnaissance Wales' (1998); 'Prague, 1968' (1999); 'Teatro del Tiempo' (2003); 'Camargue' (2006); 'Retrospektive' (2006); 'Invasion Prag 68' (2008); 'Roma' (2011); 'Piedmont/Piemont' (2010/2012); 'Wall' (2013, 2015); 'Nationality Doubtful' (2014); 'Decreazione' (2014); 'Industries' (2017); 'The Making of Exiles' (2017); 'Returning' (2018); 'Ruins' (2020); 'Magnum Ireland' (2020); 'Théâtre' (2021); 'Ikonar. Archival Constellations' (2022); 'Next: A Visual Biography' (2023, by Melissa Harris)
Exhibitions (a selection)
- 2014: 'Nationality Doubtful', Art Institute of Chicago;
2017: 'Exiles', Centre Pompidou, Paris; 'Invasion/Exiles/Wall', C/O Berlin;
2023: 'IKONAR. Archival Constellations', Lausanne, Switzerland;