Jan Saudek - Fine Art Photography

Hand painted portraits

“I have no way of portraying the lives of others. I portray my own.” Jan Saudek’s life has always been a maverick existence. Ostracized in his Czech homeland, Saudek created fantastic worlds of the imagination, mysterious places imbued with magical reality. His portraits in the tradition of the ‘tableau vivant’ and the ‘pose plastique’ have brought him international renown. As, of course, have his nudes, if it is possible to classify them as nude photography at all. Saudek shows nakedness and reveals beauty even in decay and deformity. The props he uses conjure up a ‘fin de siecle’ decadence and elegance, while the impression of irreality is heightened by the strange colouring he began using in the 70s. Passage taken from the essay by Christiane Fricke from Jan Saudek published by Taschen 1998.