(b Pr?bram, 3 March 1883; d Prague, 13 Jan 1961). Bohemian photographer and painter. He wanted to become a painter, but his father insisted on a more secure future and made him train as a photographer at the studio of Anton?n Matas in Pr?bram. In 1901 he took a two-year course at the Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt f?r Photographie in Munich. At that time the city was an important centre of Jugendstil. He was successful in his studies, and upon finishing he won the first prize. He then worked in the professional studios of T. Schumann in Karlsruhe, Albert B?se in Chur, Switzerland, and Josef Faix in Prague. In 1907, after three years of military service, he founded his own studio in Pr?bram. It was not, however, a commercial success, and in 1910 he moved to Prague and established a studio in Vodickova Street, specializing in portrait photography. He made excellent portraits of prominent politicians and cultural figures. In 1911 he published a portfolio of oleo (oil pigment) prints, Z dvorku a dvorecku star? Prahy. Drtikol's own creative work in his Prague studio, with which he came to prominence, was devoted to the female nude. At first, these were influenced by Jugendstil, but later he adopted a style more related to Art Deco, the former voluptuousness of the female body's curves giving way to almost geometrical compositions in which the same curves formed a part of geometrical patterns, more simplified and even distorted, in a variety of artistic experiments that even approached Constructivism. As he grew more and more interested in the mystical, his photographs became more stylized, and in the 1930s he finally substituted plywood figures in order to achieve the forms, shapes and positions required. He referred to this work as 'Photopurism
See the Abbreviations for further details.
