Karel Cudlín

Karel Cudlín (b. 1960) specializes in the documentary photograph. A graduate of FAMU (the School of Film and Television Faculty, Academy of Performing Arts in Prague), Cudlín has worked for a number of leading Czech magazines and newspapers (including Mladý svět, Lidové noviny, and Prostor). At present he is free-lance, with frequent engagements photographing President Václav Havel. Cudlín’s black and white photographs have a metaphorical depth; his own projects relate the stories of Gypsies, refugees, and Ukrainian workers, which he has photographed with compassion, quality, and, sometimes, humor. Cudlín works mainly in the Czech Republic, the Ukraine, and Israel. His first monograph was published in 1994 and he is also co-author of the book of photographs Izrael (50), which was published in 1998. The essay in the present publication is by Robert Silverio, a photography critic and theoretician, who lectures at FAMU on the history of photography.