(Příbram,3 de marzo de 1883- Praga, 13 de enero de 1961)
František Drtikol was a Czech photographer. He is considered to be the first relevant photographer in Czechoslovakia.
He was born in the mining town of the Central Bohemian region Příbram (Czech Republic) on March 3, 1883. Between 1901 and 1903 he studied at the Institute for Teaching and Research in Photography in Munich. He worked for important photographic studios in Germany, Switzerland and Bohemia, until in 1910 he opened a large studio in Prague with Augustin Skarda with whom he would collaborate for 11 years.
He started as a pictorial photographer until he left it in 1917 under the influence of Art Deco. However, his work with nudes was more of a personal quest. In his nudes, influenced by Art Nouveau and Symbolism, he does not conceive of the human figure as a continent of the soul, but rather as forms provided with aesthetic significance, integrating it into the compositional value of the work, making them interact with the forms, lights and shades.
From 1923 he took an avant-garde turn to his work: the models were changed by dancers and little by little the backgrounds began to be painted as part of the set design and the obsession to dynamize the scenes, through lighting and strong shadow contrasts, they achieve effects of movement and plasticity. She uses inclined scenes and geometric decoration to compose most of her photos and uses elements such as ropes and bars, rather than her shadows, to create compositions that surprise the naturalness with which she captures the human body. The sometimes very forced compositions that suggest movement evoke reminiscent of Futurism.
From 1920 he became interested in Orientalism and its philosophy and in 1935 he retired to a monastery where he devoted himself to transcendental meditation and painting. On his return he translated many Buddhist manuscripts into Czech.
He died on January 13, 1961 in Prague.
Books
- Alessandro Bertolotti: “Books of nudes”, 2007.
- Anna Fárová: “František Drtikol.Photograph des Art Deco”, 1986
- Photography from 1839 to today, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY Taschen, 1999
- VladimIr Birgus:”Photographer Frantisek Drtikol” 2000
Some of his photos
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