JAN SAUDEK
                                       
                              THE THEATRE OF LIFE
                                       
   
   
   Jan Saudek (born in 1935 in Prague) is undoubtedly the most
   provocative figure in the whole history of Czech photography. On the
   one hand he is surrounded by admiration almost amounting to workship,
   on the other by dislike bordering on damnation. He and his work excite
   a strange mixture of tenderness and violence, lyricism and irony,
   romanticism and an ostentatious eroticism that comes close to
   obscenity.
   
   Gabina, 1982
   
   [LINK] 
   
   Although it may seem - judging by the response to his work in the
   world - that Jan Saudek is one of the Fortuneīs chidren, opposite is
   true. His life is one great pilgrimage of pain, starting from a
   childhood tragically branded with Hitlerīs hallmark of non-Aryan
   birth, a time of humilation when he and his twin brother, Karel, found
   themselves in a special childrenīs concenration camp somewhere on the
   Polish border. And this time determined for ever Saudekīs insatiable
   longing for certainty and warm relationships between people. For „the
   face of home, that I wanted and shall never have", for what „I donīt
   know how to live, though I can make a picture of it".
   
   New York, New York. 1985
   
   [LINK] 
   
   Jan Saudek is the best known contemporary Czech photographer. More
   than sixty one-man exhibitions of his work have been held in all sorts
   of countries of the world during the nineteen-seventies and eighties.
   Articles about his work have been published in over two hundred
   photographic and art publications and magazines. His photographs are
   represented in all important collections. Films have been made about
   him. Jan Saudek lives and works in Prague.
   
   Walkman, 1984
   
   [LINK]