Streit, Jindrich 1946-

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STREIT, Jindrich 1946-

PERSONAL: Born September 5, 1946, in Vsetin, Czechoslovakia; married, April 20, 1971; wife's name Agnes; children: Monika. Education: Palack University, degree in art education, teacher training department, 1967; studied at Institute of Creative Photography, 1974-77.

ADDRESSES: Home—Sovinec 6, Autoposta Bruntál, cz79201, Czech Republic.

CAREER: Photographer, gallery owner, and teacher. Primary school teacher, Rymarov in 1967; headmaster of village school in Sovinec and Jiríkov. Directed gallery specializing in avante-garde artists, Sovinec, from 1973; photographer of village life during communist rule in Sovinec; arrested and imprisoned for ten months in 1982, forbidden from photographic activity or teaching; external lecturer in photography, Film and TV Academy of Prague and Institute of Creative Photography of the Theatre of Music, Silesian University in Opava, 1990—; freelance photographer throughout France, 1991-92. Exhibitions: Individual exhibits include Tension, University Club, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, 1967; The Man, Theatre of Music, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, 1974; Gypsies without Romanticism, Gallery V Podloubí, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, 1975; The Theatre of Life, Gallery V Podloubí, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, 1978; Photographs from Journies, Factory Club, Unicov, Czechoslovakia, 1979; Bruntál, Czechoslovakia, 1980; Theatre, Cinoherní Klub, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1981; J. Chloupka Gallery, Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1988; House of the Lords of Kunstát, Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1989; Side Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, 1990; Mai de la Photo, Reims, France, 1991; Prague House of Photography, Prague, Czechoslovakia, 1992; and Spála Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic, 1993. Group exhibitions include Twenty-seven Contemporary Czechoslovak Photographers, Photographers Gallery, London, England, 1985; Personalities of Czechoslovak Social Documentary Photography, Gallery F. Banská, Brno, Czechoslovakia, 1986; On the Art of Fixing a Shadow, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 1989; Choice, Houston Fotogrest, Houston, TX, 1990; Contemporary Czechoslovak Photographers, Shwayder Gallery, Denver, University, CO, 1991; More than One Photograph, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1992; Czech and Slovak Photography from Between the Wars to the Present, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA, 1993; and Another Continent, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan, 1994. Works are in several collections, including Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic; Sztuki Museum, Lodz, Poland; Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Districe de Saint-Quentin, France, Stanford University Museum of Art, Stanford, CA; Harvard University of Art, Cambridge, MA; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland.

WRITINGS:

14 Regards sur le District de Saint-Quentin, [Saint-Quentin, France], 1992, English version with Antonín Dufek published as Saint-Quentin: 14 Views of the Region, [Brno, Czech Republic], 1993.

(Photographer) Antonín Dufek, The Village Is a Global World, [Prague, Czech Republic], 1993.

(Photographer) Patrick Bernier, La Quai de Rohan—Nouvelle Ville, [Lorient, France], 1994.

Myslenky do kapsy, Olomouc, (Czech Republic), 1994.

Zabavené fotografie (title means "The Confiscated Photographs"), Sedlácek (Brno, Czech Republic), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Jindrich Streit is a Czech photographer who achieved worldwide acclaim beginning in the late 1980s. His photos of village life in Czechoslovakia—now the Czech Republic—and his organizing of exhibitions and performances for dissident artists earned him the wrath of Communist officials. Streit was imprisoned briefly in 1982, authorities having accused him of slandering the president.

Stret's photos, according to a Photographer's International writer, "are never short of the author's deep knowledge of life, his sympathetic understanding of life's light and dark aspects and, at the risk of sounding too pompous, his unpretending love and respect for love, whatever he may be and wherever he may live."

Essentially shooting Czech village subjects much of his career, Streit has exhibited as far away as Japan, where he was invited for three months after a Toyko exhibition. And, in Budapest, Hungary in November, 2000, Streit's exhibits showed the conflicts of the computer revolution and globalization. "His photographs show a disappearing world with people unable to adapt to new technologies," said a writer for the Web site Artcult.

After graduating from college Streit and his wife taught at Sovinec, a village where he compiled portraits of residents under the title Man. In his next collection, Gypsies without Romanticism, he sought to contrast the dramatic potrayal of gypsies completed by his predecessor, Josef Koudelka, and instead focused on human characteristics with a more universal application.

After finishing his studies at the Institute of Creative Photography, according to the writer, he photographed actors in dressing rooms as well as on stage. Then, the Contemporary Photographers writer added, "Streit captured cracked, muddy paths, dilapidated yards, and the cheerless stereotype of new prefabricated houses. He also photographed boring meetings and formal celebrations of various communist festivals and the sincere relationships of people in a convivial rural community where everyone knows everyone else."

Streit's raw photos of Czech village life contrast with the idyllic pictures appearing in government newspapers and magazines. This put Streit in conflict with the communist leader Gustáv Husák, and Streit was arrested in the spring of 1982. At the time of his arrest, he received a suspended sentence of ten months, but was forced to give up teaching and become a packer at the state farm in Ryzoviste. But this did not stop him from organizing cultural events or continuing on with his photography.

After the fall of communism in 1989, Streit taught at the Faculty of Film and Television in Prague and the Institute of Creative Photography of the Silesian University in Opava. He also undertook to care for the reconstruction of the medieval castle at Sovinec and additionally to continue organizing various cultural events.