Jan Dobrovský

Jan Dobrovský (1960), is a photographer, entrepreneur and former journalist. He deals mainly with black and white documentary photography. He has been taking photographs since the late 1970s when he captured sceneries of socially mutilated Prague and the countryside. He was active in dissent and published in samizdat. He planned long-term goals for domestic and foreign investors, then became an independent investor. At first glance, his photographs are socially oriented. And it seems that this applies not only to the book Families (2019), which deals with the lifestyle of Roma families in the Šluknov area in Northern Bohemia. The same can be said for his ensemble from Ukraine. Nevertheless, the creative context was captured at the opening of the author’s semi-official exhibition debut at the 1988 EF Burian Theater in Prague by writer Sergei Machonin: “Seeing life, as shown by those small, quiet photographs, makes room and time for the soul.” The second book photographer published in collaboration with publisher Paseka. Book The Painted Bird (2019) is a photography essay created during hundred shooting days of the film adaptation of Jerzy Kosiński’s novel The Painted Bird directed by Václav Marhoul. In addition to his own photography and business, Jan Dobrovský is the chairman of the Collegium of Memory of the Nation at Post Bellum, documenting the memories of important events of the last century. He is a founding member of the 400 ASA collective (2018).