“She – and I – both liked the way it came out. It took a year before I could take the photograph, before I lost my fear and she lost her shyness.” She is missing her arm, a breast, her leg, and looks at herself in the mirror, but I think the photograph is humane and is full of hope. Of a girl who was disfigured and lost the right part of her body in a fire when she was a baby. “It is one of my best photographs, I think. Photo: Zipo film archiv The photographer does say he is glad the legal matter has been wrapped up: he expressed relief to have the rights back, including to one work in particular:

That said, it’s not like up to that point I hadn’t completed a lot of work, so maybe I wouldn’t have been able to do anything else that was any good anyway!” then this was the worst thing that could have happened. if there is (and that is for others to judge). “I don’t think that I am anything ‘extra’, but if there is something special in my work. And I don’t think it’s something that I’ll be able to return to overnight, either.” But I don’t think I really took a single decent picture in seven years. It became something I had to do to survive. “The case didn’t break me but it left me disgusted and I stopped believing. In short, the long legal battle and in-family differences took their toll: Losing the rights to his work was not only a financial blow, the photographer says, but an artistic one. In the ‘90s he was one of the artists featured in an iconic ad campaign for Absolut Vodka and he also shot what became a widely reproduced image for rock band Soul Asylum: the cover of Grave Dancers Union. He is well-known for his many nudes and characteristic use of colour-tinting which adds a dreamlike quality to individual prints. Jan Saudek began photographing in 1952 and achieved his greatest commercial success after the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989. It was not about higher principles or anger, for example, over jilted love: it was only ever about money, which I find very sad.” The worst thing about all of this was the involvement of close family members. “Following expenses, there was nothing in it for me.

The contract outlined that I would receive only 15 percent of the net profit, which was nonsense, and amounted to nothing over the years.” “In the past I used to have signings for people, spending up to two hours signing photographs and this contract is something I was given by those closest to me and probably signed and just didn’t read. The high court confirmed on Tuesday that the agreement signed was legally unclear and had never been legally binding.įollowing the decision by the court, Radio Prague spoke to the photographer, asking him how the dispute had developed: Jan Saudek The case scrutinised the validity of contracts Mr Saudek signed in 2005 allegedly relinquishing rights for the reproduction of his work to the company (for example of postcards and posters).

Saudek photography