Biographie de Josef Koudelka
In 1968, JOSEF KOUDELKA (born in Moravia, 1938) photographed the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, publishing these images under the initiais R. R. (Prague Photographer). Koudelka left Czechoslovakia in 1970, became stateless, was then granted political asylum in England, and shortly thereafter joined Magnum Photos. Koudelka has published over fifteen books of photographe, including Gypsies (1975 ; revised and expanded, 2011), Exiles (first published in 1988), The Black Triangle-The Foothills of the Ore Mountains (1994), Chaos (1999), Invasion 68 : Prague (2008) and Wall (2013).
Significant exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art and the International Conter of Photography, both in New York ; Hayward Gallery, London ; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Koudelka is the récipient of the Medal of Merit awarded by the Czech Republic (2002) and numerous other awards. In 2012, he was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.
A retrospective exhibition of Josef Koudelka's work featuring images from Exiles opened at the Art Institute of Chicago in lune 2014, after which it will travel to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. He is based in Paris and Prague. CZESLAW MILOSZ (essay), poet, essayist, translator and novelist, was born in 1911 in Lithuania. He moved to Warsaw in the lifte 19305 and during World War II worked as a writer and an editor for Resistance publications.
After the war Milosz joined the Polish diplomatie service, before breaking with the government in 1951. In 1961 he became professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the University of Califbrnia, Berkeley. He received numerous honors, including the Nobel Prize in 1981. His books include The Captive Mind, The Issa Valley, The Land of Ulro, The Seizure of Power, Native Realm and The Separate Notebooks.
He died in 2004. STUART ALEXANDER (biography and bibliography) is an international specialist in photographs at Christie's, New York. As an independent curator and scholar he has published widely and organized numerous exhibitions with major international publishers, collections and museums. He is recognized as an authority on the work of Brassaï, Robert Frank and Josef Koudelka, and has contributed an essay to the catalogue for Koudelka's retrospective exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago.
