About This Image

Artist stamp on verso of print.

Vilem Kriz (1921-1994) was born in Prague. When a child, his father game him a Linhoff camera which he used throughout his life. He attended the State Graphic School in Prague (1940-46) and studied the work of other Czech photographers, like Josef Ehm, and František Drtikol. In 1946 he moved to Paris and became friends with Jean Cocteau. In 1952 he, his wife, and son immigrated to the United States where the first twelve years were difficult. According to MoCP, Columbia College Chicago, " For the next decade he made very few photographs, suffering from the stress of exile and poverty and feeling stymied artistically. He worked first as a janitor, later as a photographer's assistant, and for a time in the photography department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It was only in 1964, after moving back to Berkeley and starting to teach at California College of Art and Crafts in Oakland, that he returned to photography in earnest." He began focusing on small surrealist constructions in his living environment.

Books of his work include: Surrealism and Symbolism (1971), Sirague City: Photographs (1975), Séance (1979), Vilem Kriz, Photographs (1979), and Vilem Kriz Photographs (S K Josefsberg Studio, 1999). His work is held in many collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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