Photography exhibition by Jindřich Štreit

Jindřich Štreit was born in Vsetín, Czechoslovakia in 1946. In 1967 he received a bachelor's degree in art education from the Faculty of Education of the Palacký University of Olomouc. While studying at the university he was encouraged by one of his teachers, Jan Bukovjan, to develop his interest in photography. During this period he participated in several exhibitions and competitions at the faculty and held his first solo exhibition. In 1973 he opened a gallery in the village of Sovinec in northern Moravia (Czech Republic) and soon began collaborating with avant-garde artists from Prague, Bratislava, Brno and other cultural centres. Since 1972 he has devoted himself above all to scenes of village life and portraits of Roma. Between 1974 and 1977 he attended the Artistic Photography School of the Czech Photographers' Association. Following his participation in an unofficial exhibition of alternative art in 1982, he was arrested by the secret police. On the basis of an interpretation of his photographs as "defamatory" of the authorities, he was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment - perhaps the only case of its kind in the entire history of photography. After he was released, he was not allowed to return to teaching but nevertheless continued his work in the fields of culture and art.