Antonín Dufek (1943-2023)

29. 1. 2024

Bohdan Holomíček, ›Antonín Dufek‹, 1978, Courtesy of the author

In May 2023, when we were putting together the laudation for the award of the Art History Society Prize to Antonín Dufek, we flipped through photographs that capture important moments in his life.

In one of these photographs, Tomáš Fassati captured a young man posing in an office at the Moravian Gallery in Brno. Dufek joined the MG in 1968 and over more than four decades built up a collection of photography that has become a real sensation. Perhaps an even more important contribution of his many years of work was the systematisation of the history of Czech photography.

This is evidenced by the extensive chapters on the history of photography that he wrote for the History of Czech Visual Arts. In his curatorial practice, Dufek was able to reconcile otherwise irreconcilable artistic attitudes, keeping track of current events while rediscovering Czech modernism and the avant-garde. He also made a significant contribution to strengthening the awareness of Czech photography abroad. Together with Sue Davies, for example, he prepared the Jan Svoboda exhibition in London, participated in an exhibition of Czech photography at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, collaborated with Ute Eskildsen on an exhibition that toured many European cities, and the list could go on and on. Antonín Dufek will be missed, not only for his expertise, but also for his rare, friendly and modest nature accompanied by his distinctive humour.

Image captions

1 | Bohdan Holomíček, ›Antonín Dufek‹, 1978, Courtesy of the author

2-4 | Bohdan Holomíček, ›SEDIM V JERICHU A HELE . . . DUFEK‹, 17 October 2008, Courtesy of the author

Hana Buddeus

works at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where she is a member of the Photography Research Center. She also recently joined the curatorial collective of the Fotograf Gallery.

#46 Tourism

It is interesting how much the world of photography is connected with tourism, in other words, how much the two domains may have in common. If we look at them through the lens of a mass phenomenon, they may even be similarly old. And it is in this perspective that a number of controversial questions arise in all their clarity. To what extent has tourism affected many of the coastlines and unique destinations that attract tourists? And to what extent does photography influence our perception of the places we visit?