Václav Chochola -
biographical data
1923 Born on 30th January
in Libeň in Prague.
1934 Studies at Grammar
School in Libeň in Prague.
1939 An active sportsman
and starts taking photographs of athletic competitions
with a 6x9 cm
Voigtlander camera, starts to publish in the daily press.
1940 Buys a Zeis Ikon
6x6cm camera, prepares the photographs in
the Friends of Amateur
Photography Club.
1941 Abandons his studies
at Grammar School and starts a photographic appren
ticeship in O. Erbana's
studio in Letné in Prague, at the same time attends
photographic classes in
Smíchov in Prague, publishes photographs in the
daily press, apart from
sport gradually starts to be involved in theatrical pho
tography and cultural
life.
1942 Gets to know and
starts to work with the photographers Karl Ludwig
and Zdeněk Tmej.
1943 First studio in the
centre of Prague at 20 Soukenická Street. External photog
rapher at the National
Theatre, Vinohrady Theatre, Uranie, Meantime and
Intimate Theatre Větrník
and other theatres outside Prague as well.
Member of the Mánes Club
of the Friends of the Arts.
1944 In his freelance
work he is inspired by the atmosphere of the city and by his
social and artistic
contacts with figures of the time. His photograhy is loosely
based on the artistic
programme of Group 42 and its urban poetry of the
working week.
1945 Photographs the
Prague Uprising and the end of the war. Continues to photo
graph post-war
theatrical premieres, the renewed V + W Theatrical Scenes -
Jan Werich and Jiří
Voskovec, cooperates with a recording study at
Supraphon /previously
Ultraphon/. Obtains educational "Craftsman's certifi-
cate" and thus finishes
his work in the Letné studio. Starts to photograph
with a Leica, Primarflex
and Contax.
1946-48 Photographs the first
years of the Prague Spring, just about every sporting
discipline - from
athletics, cars, cycling and motorcycling competitions, the
traditional annual
walking competition from Prague- Poděbrady, fencing, foot
bal, hockey, horse-racing
and so on, at the same time he devotes himself to
photographing theatrical
scenes.
1949 Accepted as a member
of the Association of Czechoslovakian Graphic and
Visual Artists. /
Amongst the members: K.Ludwig, J.Sudek, J.Lukas, K.Plicka,
J.Prošek, J.Brok, J.Ehm,T.Honty,
J.Jeníček Z.Tmej / Gets to know the painter
František Tichý and
makes make his first portrait of him.
1950 Obtains a new studio
in Rytířské Street in the Old Town in Prague.
1951-52 Collaberates with
Zdeněk Tmej, with book publishers and with magazines,
photographs the suburbs.
1953 Marriage, birth of
his daughter Blanka, returns to Libeň with his family.
1957 Passes the editorial
screening in the Association of Czechoslovakian Graphic
and Visual Artists,
Jindřich Chalupecký champions his photography. Suffering
from total stress is
hospitalized in a psychiatric wing.
1958-59 Friendship and
collaberation with František Tichý on the completion and
rephotographing of his
complete graphic work for publication. While photo
graphing in the SKN
Theatre meets Bohumil Hrabal and his friends.
1960 Prepares his first
monograph in collaboration with Jiří Kolář.
1961 Three-month stay in
Vietnam, where he was sent by the SČVU together with
the photographer
Dagmar Hochova.
1962-67 Continues to make
portraits of distinguished Czech personalities from the
arts,but also of
foreignors, who visited Prague: D. H. Kahnweiler, P. P.
Pasolini, M. Antonioni,
L. Armstrong, J. L. Barrault, M. Marceau and others.
1968-69 Repeated stays in
Paris enrich his collection of portraits of personalities:
S. Dalí, M. Ray,
Brassai, M. Ernst, D. Elington and others.
1970 22. 1. Arrested
after photographing Jan Palach's grave and held on remand
for a month in Ruzyň
prison.
1970-73 Given a suspended
sentence of five years. Takes a minimal amount of pho
tographs, works on the
photographic material from his stay in France, matters
made worse by the loss
of all his photographic equipment. It is stolen from
him by a Prague taxi
driver. His daughter Blanka passes the School Leaving
Exam in Art Photography
at the Secondary Pedagogical Graphic School and
starts to help with the
work in the archive.
1974 Evicted from the
studio in Rytířské Street and moves to a new studio in a
pre-fabricated building
in Braník in Prague 4.
1979 Works with his
daughter on the completion of a biography of his life and pho
tographic work for a
theoretical diploma thesis at FAMU called "The life and
creative impulses of the
photographer Václav Chochola.
1980 Birth of his
grandson Marek, who later also starts studiing photography.
1982 A retrospective
stocktaking exhibition on his sixtieth birthday is put together
by Jana Reichová and
opened by Bohumil Hrabal.
1989 Continues to work on
the arrangement and completion of his extensive
archive, the solo
exhibitions were initiated by his daughter. For the first time
an exhibition collection
travels to America as a whole. Makes commemorative
posters of Josef Sudek
for the Ministry of Culture of the Czechoslovak
Republic and the
Association of Czech Graphic and Visual Artists in Prague.
1990- 93 In Paris again after
a break of more than twenty years and as a grant-holder
from the Charter 77
Foundation at La Napoule Chateaux in the South of
France. 1993 his
daughter works independently on his archive and prepares
the monograph "Cabinet
of Memories of Václav Chochola" and an independ
ent exhibition project,
which is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the
Czech Republic an a
number of institutions.
1994-99 Continues with the
completion, classification and working on the photograph
ic archive for
photographic exhibitions and publications.
2000-01 The director Věra
Chytilová and Blanka Chocholová prepare a two-part docu
mentary film for Czech
television about the photographers Chochola, Ludwig
and Tmej called Rises
and Falls. Within the framework of the Prague
European City of Culture
for the year 2000 project an exhibition of four classic
Czech photographers -
Hájek, Chochola, Ludwig and Tmej is put on in the
Václav Špála Gallery (with
a reprise in Český Krumlov)
2003 As an eightieth
birthday present, an Exhibition from the Photographic Archive of
Vaclav Chochola was
held in the Clam-Gallass palace in Prague. The exhibition
travelled, slightly
reduced in size, to Ostrava and Opava. Apart from his daughter
Blanka, his grandson
Marek also helped to prepare this exhibition.
2004 Release of a
monograph in the edition Fototorst, presented together with the
exhibition of portraits of Salvador Dalí in palace Langhans. Exhibitions
“Salvador Dalí” and “Photographic Archive” in the Städtische galerie,
Erlangen,
Germany. Exhibiton “Theatre in photographs of Václav Chochola” opened in the
National Theatre, Prague
