Havel Forever

Oldřich Škácha (1941) did not just photograph Václav Havel during his presidential term (as many others did), but was already doing so in the early 1970s, within the nascent circles of dissent, and then again when the president became ‘ordinary citizen Havel’. Škácha was never the official presidential photographer, so in his shots we see Václav Havel not just at work but also at moments of rest or in many private meetings with friends, artists, and politicians. The book’s more than 60 black-and-white photographs offer a peek behind the scenes of Havel’s world – which Oldřich Škácha was a part of for forty years, inconspicuous, and concealed behind the lens of his Leica. This makes his photographs all the more immediate and direct and filled with an emotion that will be characteristic of our generation forever.