Returning to Prague, Saudek had to work at his photography clandestinely in a cellar, to avoid the attentions of the secret police.

In 1969, Saudek traveled to the United States, where he was encouraged in his work by curator Hugh Edwards of the Art Institute of Chicago. After completing his military service, he was inspired in 1963 by the catalogue for American photographer Edward Steichen's The Family of Man exhibition, and began to work to become a serious art photographer. In 1959, he started using the more advanced Flexaret 6圆 camera, and also engaged in painting and drawing. He apprenticed to a photographer, and in 1952 started working in a print shop he was restricted to this work by the Communist government until 1983.

A Communist-dominated government gained power after the war to rule the country, enforced by the Soviet Union and considered to be behind the Iron Curtain.Īccording to Saudek's biography, he acquired his first camera, a Kodak Baby Brownie, in 1950. Although their mother and many other relatives died, both sons and father survived the war. Their father Gustav was deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in February 1945. Many of his Jewish relatives died in Theresienstadt concentration camp during the war. During World War II and after the invasion of the German Nazis, both sides of his family were racially persecuted by the invaders. Their mother's family came to Prague from Bohemia, and their father from the city of Děčín in the northwest part of that area. Jan Saudek and his twin brother Karel (also known as Kája) were born to a Slavic (Czech) mother and Jewish father in Prague in 1935.

A disintegrating wall and a window giving a glimpse into the backyard became the witnesses of his fantasies and collaborations with models of all different sizes and origins. He lived in poverty using the only room in his basement as his studio. The cliché of a naked man holding a naked new born baby with tenderness became a picture that was reproduced so many times that the composition became as commonplace as posing for a graduation picture.ĭuring his life in communist Czechoslovakia, Jan was labeled by the totalitarian regime as a pornographer. Jan is the author of many “ mise en scene” that were re-taken and copied by other artists. His art gained more prominence during the 1990s, thanks to his collaboration with the publisher Taschen.ĭuring the 2000s, Saudek lost all his photo negatives in matrimonial dispute and his pictures are now displayed on internet for free. In his country of origin, Czechoslovakia, Jan was considered a disturbed artist and oppressed by authorities. Jan Saudek's art work represents a unique technique combining photography and painting. Jan Saudek (born ) is an art photographer and painter. The World of Jan Saudek: Photographs, Jan Saudek-Il teatro de la vita, Story from, Czechoslovakia, My Country, and Photographs by Jan Saudek

Saudek by Jan Saudek