Bohumil Krcil

The work of the legendary late photographer and samizdat publisher Bohumil "Bob" Krcil, who was born in 1952, is little known in his native country. He left Czechoslovakia in 1969, and for the next 23 years, traveled extensively through much of Europe and Asia, photographing what he encountered. He had a knack for being in the right place at the right time: He captured the Afghan city of Herat before the Soviet invasion, the hashish culture of the Indian part of the Himalayas and New York, where he eventually settled on the Lower East Side, in the 1980s, in a straightforward, documentary style. Of his New York work, The Prague Post wrote, "Like his work from other points across the globe, the photos of New York mostly capture people on the streets or in shops, all of whom seem to radiate the special energy of the city. Even his cityscapes without people are full of life. The best photo from this series is "The Twins in the Wind" (1983), showing the towers of the World Trade Center rising above a mound of earth and utterly isolated against the sky, almost as if they were alone in a desert, touching the clouds." Like his prominent friends, photographers Josef Koudelka and Antonín Kratochvíl, Krcil lived and worked in exile. He is remembered for his innate openness, tolerance and amiability--traits that made him a natural traveler. This publication includes an essay by Jitka Hlavackova, an art historian at Prague City Gallery.