Jan Saudek

Jan Saudek (born 13 May 1935 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is an art photographer and painter. He and his twin brother Kaja Saudek are holocaust survivors. Jan Saudek’s art work represents a unique technique combining photography and painting. In his country of origin, Czechoslovakia, Jan was considered as a disturbed artist and oppressed by authorities. His art was recognized in the 90s, thanks to his collaboration with the publisher Taschen. In the first decade of 21st century, Jan Saudek lost all his negative in matrimonial dispute and his pictures are now displayed on internet for free. Jan claims there were stolen from him. Jan is an author of many “mise en scene” that were re-taken and copied by other artists. The cliché of a naked man holding with tenderness on a naked new born baby became a picture that was reproduced so many times, that this composition is now as common as posing for a graduation picture. During his life in communist Czechoslovakia, Jan was labeled by totalitarian regime as pornographer. He lived in an imaginable poverty using his only room in the basement as his studio. The falling apart wall and a window giving to the backyard became the witness of his fantasies and collaboration with models coming in all sizes and of all origins.