Kratochvíl Antonín

Antonín Kratochvíl (*1947) lives a life of peril and adventure, similar to the epic hero Odysseus'. After fleeing Soviet Czechoslovakia in 1967, he spent time in a refugee camp in Austria, was imprisoned in Sweden, and sustained significant injuries while serving in the French Foreign Legion before settling in the Netherlands and studying photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. When he married an American woman in 1972 and relocated to the United States, he began working as a photographer for prominent magazines such as Vogue, Rolling Stone, New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, and Detour. During this cooperation, he created legendary photographs of David Bowie, Keith Richards, William Defoe, and Liv Tyler. Despite moving overseas in quest of freedom, he frequently returned to totalitarian countries as a documentary photographer. He documented the genocide in Rwanda, the life of Bosnian refugees, the AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe, and drug cartel operations in Guatemala. He was imprisoned in Ethiopia, illegally entered into Iraq in a rented van, and in Afghanistan, an illiterate soldier threatened to shoot him because he couldn't read his American passport. Kratochvíl's renowned documentary images earned him a spot on American Photo magazine's list of the world's top 100 photographers in 1999. Kratochvíl has received three World Press Photo prizes and presented his work in the National Gallery and leading galleries worldwide.