dispatches

Antonin Kratochvil /

Antonin Kratochvil escaped Czechoslovakia in 1967 and, after life as a refugee in Europe, settled in New York nine years later. This early experience, combined with an inner compulsion to never stop digging, helps him to picture the human condition wherever he finds it.

One agency photographer remembers meeting him at a Croatia refugee camp, thinking he was some shaggy-haired old loser who got there too late. “I got everything,” he boasted, “food distribution, water queue, ICRC doctors, tents, kids being vaccinated, the whole story. Now I’m going to file." Kratochvil looked at him and said, "You missed it. It’s about boredom, baby, boredom."

Kratochvil, one of the most celebrated photographers of the age is a founding partner of VII photo agency and has won countless honors.