![]() ![]() He recalls at the age of nine seeing a German boy-soldier strung up from a lamppost by his ankles. The violence in his early years made a deep impression on Saudek, as he looked upon the dead and dying around him “long and close, the way a child does”. Six of his siblings perished in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, while Jan and his twin brother Karel survived, having being held at Mischlinge, a special concentration camp for twins. ![]() As children of Jewish parents, he and his brothers were sent to concentration camp during the Nazi occupation, as was their father, Gustav Saudek. Jan Saudek was born in 1935 in Prague, Czech Republic. 800, Dancers in Paradise (1985), image via The Baruch Foundation Early Years In his words: “I have no ways of portraying the lives of others. His private life of easy virtue, something he was notorious for, has served as inspiration for the artist, alongside his lovers who he considered his muses. Looking to capture the beauty and reality of life, Saudek’s art shows scenes of love, lust, interpersonal bond, family, youth, old age and the in-between. He created the dreamy world his subjects inhabit by painting over staged black-and-white photos, frequently re-using identical images and motifs for the backdrop, such as a cloudy sky, a view of Prague’s Charles Bridge or his famous flaky wall. Photographer Jan Saudek, known for his hand-tinted photographs often portraying nude or semi-nude (mostly female) figures, and infamous for his promiscuous lifestyle, is one of Czech Republic’s most highly acclaimed artists. ![]()
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