Edition 2009
Bohdan HOLOMICEK
Bohdan Holomicek was born in 1943 in Sienkiewiczowka, Ukraine, to a Ukrainian mother and a Czech father from the community in Volhynia, a province of Ukraine that is home to a Czech minority. When the war ended, the family emigrated to Mlade Buky, a town on the Polish-Czech border. Living conditions were very harsh, and only three of the five children survived. This mountain region is where the photographer still lives, in the home provided by the small electricity power station where he worked as an electrician until he retired. In 1956, aged 13, he received his first camera for Christmas. In fact, a few months earlier, he had “spirited” a small amount of money from his mother to buy a small camera he had spotted in the village shop. The petty thief was easily discovered, having been unable to plausibly explain where the camera had come from; his father demanded that he return it to the shop and retrieve the money. The following Christmas, the present was all the more surprising for Bohdan, who had not given up the idea of one day having a camera. At this time, his only contact with photography had been reading the magazines in a collection container; the young boy spent hours looking at them. He also soon attended the photography club that he heard about in the next village. He learned only the technical rudiments needed to take his first shots, but soon forgot the “aesthetic” rules that the club's older members tried to instil in him. Since that Christmas, Bohdan Holomicek has taken thousands of photographs - a prolific, moving œuvre of great formal liberty. His images instantly move us, and that is doubtless the hallmark of a great talent. All of his work - whether on his village, Havel, the theatre or other topics - speaks of one thing: his passion for humankind when it exercises its freedom, generosity and curiosity.
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