Career

Cudlín was born in Prague and started taking photographs in his teens. Borrowing his father's Exakta

Exakta

The Exakta is a pioneer brand camera produced by the Ihagee Kamerawerk in Dresden, Germany, founded as the Industrie und Handels-Gesellschaft mbH, in 1912.- Characteristics :Highlights of Exakta cameras include:...

 and supported by his uncle, a photography enthusiast, Cudlín soon started photographing the Roma people of Žižkov

Žižkov

Žižkov is a cadastral district of Prague, Czech Republic. Most of Žižkov lies in the municipal and administrative district of Prague 3, except for very small parts which are in Prague 8 and Prague 10. Prior to 1922, Žižkov was an independent city....

, the suburb where he lived. Cudlín attended a social work school that, combined with a short stint in a low-grade job, provided him with the proletarian credentials needed to join the Fotografia cooperative. The cooperative sent him to a ballroom in the Lucerna area where he overcame considerable technical difficulties in photographing young people at night. A third area that he explored was Communist Party rituals.

After a year at Lidová škola umění, Cudlín was in 1983 admitted to FAMU

Film and TV School of The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague

The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague or FAMU is one of the oldest film schools in Europe. Located in Prague, Czech Republic, FAMU was founded in 1946 as one of three branches of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague...

, which was very free by Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

n standards of the time. He graduated in 1987, and soon found work at the weekly Mladý svět

Mladý Svet

Mladý Svět was a magazine published in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic. It contained editorials, comics and other works...

. During the summer of 1989, Cudlín made a cycle of photographs depicting East Germans escaping from their country with the help of the West German

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

 embassy in Prague. Following the Velvet Revolution

Velvet Revolution

The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...

 and subsequent democratization of Czechoslovakia, he embarked on a series of relationships with other Czechoslovakian media sources, among them the newspapers Prostor and Lidové noviny

Lidové noviny

Lidové noviny is a daily newspaper published in the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily. Its profile is nowadays a national news daily covering political, economic, cultural and scientific affairs, mostly with a centre-right, conservative view...

and the ČTA

CTA

CTA may refer to:*Brazilian General Command for Aerospace Technology, abbreviated CTA*California Teachers Association, a labor union*Call to Action...

 agency. After ČTA closed in 1996, Cudlín became a freelance photographer. Additionally, he has worked as one of the personal photographers of the former Czech President Václav Havel

Václav Havel

Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...

.

Cudlín's new themes included refugees, Israel, the lingering Soviet forces within Czechoslovakia, Valdice prison, and, by accident, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 (a putsch had interrupted Cudlín and Vojta Dukát's plan to go to Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

). He has continued with a small number of long-term projects (Ukrainian workers in Prague, hypermarkets), photographed in black and white.

Awards

Cudlín has won seven awards in the major photographic competition in the Czech Republic, Czech Press Photo.

Books of Cudlín's works

• Photographie. Prague: Torst, 1994.
• (With Jindřich Marco.) Izrael (50). Prague: Argo, 1998. ISBN 807203183X.
• Silverio, Robert. Karel Cudlín. Prague: Torst, 2001. ISBN 80-7215-148-7 Text in Czech and English.
• (With Pavla Jazairiová.) Izrael a Palestina, Palestina a Izrael. V Praze: Radioservis, 2001. ISBN 8086212181.
• (With Tomki Němec.) Havel - fotografie = Havel - photographs. Liberec
  Liberec
  Liberec is a city in the Czech Republic. Located on the Lusatian Neisse and surrounded by the Jizera Mountains and Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge, it is the fifth-largest city in the Czech Republic....
  
  : Knihy 555, 2002. ISBN 8086660036.
• (With Monika MacDonagh-Pajerová.) Portrét české společnosi na prahu Evropy = Portrait of Czech society in the threshold of Europe. Brno: Petrov, 2004. ISBN 8072271903.

External links

• Cudlín's site (requires Flash)
• Pasáže/Passageways detailed essay to accompany a 2004 exhibition at the Jewish Museum in Prague
  Jewish Museum in Prague
  The Jewish Museum in Prague is a museum of Jewish heritage located in Prague, Czech Republic.The Jewish Museum in Prague was founded in 1906 by historian Dr. Hugo Lieben and Dr. Augustin Stein, who later became head of the Prague Jewish Community...
  
  
• Interview with Cudlín