Chronology
by Stuart Alexander
1938
Josef Koudelka is born January 10 in Moravia, Czechoslovakia.
c.1952
Introduced to photography by a friend of his father, he begins to take pictures of family and friends using a Bakelite camera.
1956–61
Studies engineering at the Czech Technical University, Prague.
Acquires an old Rolleiflex.
Meets the photographer and critic Jiří Jeníček, who encourages him to exhibit his work at the Semafor Theatre in Prague.
1961
At the opening of the Semafor exhibition, he meets art critic Anna Fárová, a major figure in Czechoslovak photography, with whom he collaborates until he leaves the country in 1970.
Travels abroad for the first time, to Italy, as a musician in a folk music and dance group.
Begins to photograph the Roma of Czechoslovakia.
1961–67
Works as an aeronautical engineer in Prague and Bratislava.
Contributes to the magazine Divadlo (Theatre) as a freelance photographer.
1963
Meets Markéta Luskačová, a cultural sociology student, who is beginning to photograph religious festivals in Slovakia.
1965
At the invitation of Otomar Krejča, director of the Divadlo za branou (Theatre beyond the gate), Prague, he begins to photograph performances there.
Becomes a member of the Union of Czechoslovak Artists.
1966
Publishes a book titled Král Ubu: Rozbor inscenace Divadla Na zábradlí v Praze, on the production of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi at the Divadlo Na zábradlí (Theatre on the Balustrade).
1967
Leaves his engineering job and devotes himself full-time to photography.
Receives the Union of Czechoslovak Artists’ annual award for the innovative quality of his theatrical photographs.
His photographs of Roma are shown for the first time in the exhibition Cikáni [Gypsies], 1961–1966, at Divadlo za branou, Prague.
1968
Travels to Romania with sociologist Milena Hübschmannová to photograph Roma.
Returns to Prague the day before Warsaw Pact troops invade the city, ending the short-lived political freedom in Czechoslovakia that came to be known as the Prague Spring. Throughout this tumultuous period, Koudelka photographs the confrontations between Czechoslovaks and Soviets wherever they occur, as well as daily life in the streets.
1969
Makes his first visit to England in April when the Divadlo za branou theatre group asks Koudelka to accompany them to London and exhibit his theatre photographs in the foyer of the Aldwych Theatre.
In mid-July, he begins his second visit to the UK, where he remains for at least three months. His photographs of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia the previous year are secreted over the border and sent to the United States. The photographers’ cooperative Magnum Photos distributes the photographs while Koudelka is still in the UK, attributing them to ‘P. P.’ (Prague Photographer) to avoid reprisals against Koudelka and his family; a photo essay ‘by an anonymous Czech photographer’ is published in major international magazines. The images won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club. Elliott Erwitt, then President of Magnum Photos, makes a short film of animated stills with these images for CBS News, maintaining Koudelka’s anonymity.
1970
Leaves Czechoslovakia on a three-month exit visa to photograph Roma in the West. Does not return after expiration of the visa; becomes stateless. The UK grants him asylum and he lives there through 1979.
Begins traveling and photographing Roma, religious and popular festivals, and daily life in various European countries.
1971
Elliott Erwitt proposes that Koudelka join Magnum Photos; he becomes an associate member.
1972
Meets Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Delpire, who become his close friends.
Gets to know Romeo Martinez.
1974
Becomes a full member of Magnum Photos.
1975
Josef Koudelka, a solo exhibition organized by John Szarkowski, opens at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Robert Delpire publishes, in Paris, Koudelka’s photographs of Roma as Gitans: La fin du voyage (1977); Aperture publishes the American edition under the title Gypsies.
1978
Awarded the Prix Nadar by the Gens d’Images, Paris, for Gitans: La fin du voyage.
1980–87
Leaves the UK for France in 1980. Still stateless, he continues to travel throughout Europe.
1984
First major exhibition, conceived by Robert Delpire and organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain, is held at Hayward Gallery, London. To accompany the exhibition, Josef Koudelka (Collection Photo Poche) is published in English and in French by the Centre National de la Photographie, Paris.
After the death of his father and sixteen years of anonymity, Koudelka’s photos of the invasion of Prague are published for the first time under his own name. (Before this date he had sought to protect his family still living in Czechoslovakia from possible reprisals.)
1986
At the invitation of the Mission photographique de la DATAR (a French governmental agency), he takes part in a project to document the urban and rural landscape of France. It is for this project that he first begins to work with a panoramic camera.
1987
Becomes a naturalized citizen of France. Awarded the Grand Prix national de la photographie from the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, France.
1988
Two large exhibitions of Koudelka’s work, organized by Robert Delpire, are presented at the Centre National de la Photographie, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, and at the International Center of Photography, New York. These two exhibitions travel throughout the U.S. and Europe.
Exils is published by Centre National de la Photographie, Paris (published as Exiles by Aperture, New York, and Thames and Hudson, London).
Begins photographing with a panoramic camera in the north of France for the Mission photographique Transmanche, a project to record changes in the region caused by construction of the tunnel underneath the Channel.
1989
Receives the Hugo Erfurth Prize from the city of Leverkusen, Germany, and Agfa-Gevaert AG.
Although he is still unable to return to Czechoslovakia, as a holder of a French passport he is invited to visit the Soviet Union with eight other French photographers. He photographs in Moscow.
His work for the Mission photographique Transmanche culminates in the publication of his first book of panoramic photographs, Josef Koudelka (number six in the Mission photographique Transmanche series).
Awarded the Prix Romanès from the Roma author Matéo Maximoff.
Exiles (1988) receives the International Center of Photography Publication Award for an Outstanding Photographic Book.
1990
With the collapse of the Communist régime, returns to visit Prague for the first time since going into exile twenty years earlier. Begins photographing in Eastern Europe.
Anna Fárová curates an exhibition in Prague, in which Koudelka’s photographs of the 1968 invasion as it unfolds in the city are exhibited (and published) in Czechoslovakia for the first time.
Begins to photograph one of the most devastated landscapes in Europe: the foothills of the Ore Mountains in northern Bohemia, which have been destroyed by strip mining. They make up the western portion of the vast region known as the ‘Black Triangle’, which includes southern Germany and Poland.
1991
Receives the Henri Cartier-Bresson Award (Centre National de la Photographie and American Express, Paris).
Photographs the war-devastated city centre of Beirut with a panoramic camera.
1992
Receives the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography.
Named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, by the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, France.
1994
After four years of work in the Black Triangle region, conceives and organizes the exhibition and the book of panoramic photographs, Černý trojúhelník – Podkrušnohoří: Fotografie 1990–1994 (The Black Triangle – the foothills of the Ore Mountains: photographs, 1990–1994), which is published by Vesmír in Prague.
Invited by the producers of the film Ulysses’ Gaze, directed by Theo Angelopoulos, Koudelka accompanies the film crew to record his personal vision of the Balkan countries where the film is shot. These photographs are exhibited and published under the title Periplanissis: Following Ulysses’ Gaze.
1996–97
Invited by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony and the Siemens Culture Program to participate in the project Aufriss: Künstlerische Positionen und Industrielandschaft in der Mitte Europas, Koudelka and eight other artists are asked to react to the region in Saxony, Poland, and the Czech Republic, where the landscape has been ruined by irresponsible industrial exploitation and strip mining.
1997–98
Receives a commission from Ffotogallery, Cardiff, Wales, on behalf of Cardiff Bay Arts Trust, to make a series of panoramic images in South Wales. The culmination of this project is the book and exhibition Reconnaissance: Wales, accompanied by Welsh exhibitions of other groups of his 8work.
1998
Awarded the Centenary Medal by the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, England, for his ‘sustained significant contribution to the art of photography’.
2001
Completes a series of panoramic photographs for the Lhoist Group, lime and dolomite producers. The photographs present Koudelka’s view of changes to the landscape as a result of the mining of limestone; this work is published in the book Lime Stone.
2002
Named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the Ministry of Culture and Communication, France.
A major retrospective exhibition conceived and designed by Koudelka is presented at the National Gallery in Prague.
Awarded the Medal of Merit of the Czech Republic by President Václav Havel.
2003
Completes a project in Rome; the resulting exhibition, Teatro del tempo, is accompanied by a book of the same title.
Photographs archaeological sites in Greece for an exhibition to coincide with the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens.
2004
Presented the Cornell Capa Infinity Award for ‘distinguished achievement in photography’ by the International Center of Photography, New York.
2006
Koudelka, the first retrospective work to cover Koudelka’s entire career, is published in France and several other countries. The book is the culmination of thirty-five years of friendship and collaboration with Robert Delpire.
2008
Forty years after the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies invaded Prague, Koudelka’s book Invasion 68: Prague is published, by the following year, in eleven languages. It includes hundreds of previously unpublished photographs.
2011
The book Gypsies is published in seven editions. It is a revised and enlarged version of a maquette prepared in Prague forty-three years earlier, by Koudelka and graphic designer Milan Kopřiva.
Invasion 68 Prague opens in Moscow at the Lumière Brothers Center for Photography.
2012
Koudelka’s book Lime is published in France, the culmination of photographing fifty-one quarries in eleven countries for the Lhoist Group from 1999 to 2010.
Named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.
2013
Vestiges 1991–2012/Josef Koudelka opens at Centre de la Vieille Charité in Marseille. It is his first retrospective exhibition on the subject of major ancient Greek and Roman archaeological sites in twenty Mediterranean countries.
The book Wall: Israeli & Palestinian Landscape, 2008–2012 is published, completing a project Koudelka began in 2008 as one of twelve photographers invited to participate in a project called ‘This Place’. Wall comprises photographs taken of, and related to, the Israeli constructed barrier which runs through the Palestinian West Bank and Israel.
2014
The retrospective exhibition Josef Koudelka: Nationality Doubtful opens at the Art Institute of Chicago and, later, at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
The new revised and expanded edition of Exiles is published by Aperture, New York, Thames and Hudson, London, and Delpire, Paris.
The group exhibition This Place, including Koudelka’s photographs of the Israeli constructed barrier running through the Palestinian West Bank and Israel, opens at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague, before touring to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Norton Museum of Art, and, finally, the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2016.
2015
Josef Koudelka: Twelve Panoramas, 1987–2012 opens at Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York.
The retrospective exhibition Josef Koudelka: Nationality Doubtful opens at Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid.
Premiere of the documentary film Koudelka: Shooting Holy Land by photographer and filmmaker Gilad Baram.
2016
Exiles/Wall opens at the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam.
Gypsies opens at the Museum of Photography, Seoul.
2017
Josef Koudelka: La fabrique d’Exils opens at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Josef Koudelka: Industrial Landscapes opens at the Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna, as part of Foto/Industria, the Biennial of Photography on Industry and Work.
2018
Prague’s Museum of Decorative Arts and National Gallery host the exhibitions Koudelka: Navraty and Koudelka De-creazione drawn from Koudelka’s gifts to those institutions.
2019
The Josef Koudelka Foundation is established in Prague.
2020
Culmination of several years photographing archaeological sites in the Mediterranean with the presentation of his exhibition Ruines at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
2021
Donation of over 2,000 photographs representative of his life’s work to four museums in the Czech Republic.
Koudelka Theatre is published by delpire & co in Paris in French and English.
Deníky, selections from Koudelka's diaries is published in Prague by Torst.
2022
IKONAR: Archival Constellations and its accompanying publication drawn from vintage prints, contact enlargements and archival material is presented at Photo Elysée in Lausanne.
2023
Josef Koudelka Next: A Visual Biography by Melissa Harris is published by Aperture.