Jan Saudek, czech painter/photographer has got to be one of my fave aesthetic influencers. His pieces celebrate queerness and nudity in all shapes with a grungy, frisky, mysterious yet revealing look.
Born in 1935 and having jewish heritage made his family a nazi target, so he experienced the WWII in his own skin. After surviving the holocaust he went back to Prague, where he worked clandestinely in a cellar, to avoid the attentions of the secret police, as his work evolved into themes of personal erotic freedom, and used implicitly political symbols of corruption and innocence.
Born in 1935 and having jewish heritage made his family a nazi target, so he experienced the WWII in his own skin. After surviving the holocaust he went back to Prague, where he worked clandestinely in a cellar, to avoid the attentions of the secret police, as his work evolved into themes of personal erotic freedom, and used implicitly political symbols of corruption and innocence.
From the late 1970s, he became recognised in the West as the leading Czech photographer. In 1983, the first book of his work was published in the English-speaking world. The same year, he became a freelance photographer as the Czech Communist authorities allowed him to cease working in a print shop, and gave him permission to apply for a permit to work as an artist. In 1987, the archives of his negatives were seized by the police, but later returned.