Jitka Hanzlová

Works

Installation view, Identities, 2025, Albertina Museum, Vienna

WATER, 2013 – 2019

Human Light, Untitled, 2018 (Landscape stripes)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

HORSE, 2007 – 2014

Untitled, 2007 (Filly)

Original c-print

29,7 × 21,2 cm

HORSE, 2007 – 2014

Untitled, 2010 (Pissing)

Original c-print

59,5 × 42 cm

COTTON ROSE, 2004 – 2006

Untitled, 2004 (Blue wall)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

COTTON ROSE, 2004 – 2006

Untitled, 2004 (Night in Gifu)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

Installation view, Doorway, 2022, Palazzo Da Mosto, Reggio Emilia, Italy

Installation view, Doorway, 2022, Palazzo Da Mosto, Reggio Emilia, Italy

FEMALE, 1997 – 2000

Tereza, Central Park, 2000

Color photograph

40,6 × 30,5 cm

FEMALE, 1997 – 2000

Daphne, Long Island, 1999

Color photograph

28,8 × 19,2 cm

FEMALE, 1997 – 2000

Ivana, Coney Island, 2000

Color photograph

40,6 × 30,5 cm

FEMALE, 1997 – 2000

Sylvia, Chelsea, 1999

Color photograph

40,6 × 30,5 cm

FEMALE, 1997 – 2000

Blue Door, London, 1999

Color photograph

40,6 × 30,5 cm

FEMALE, 1997 – 2000

Maryanne, Upper East Side, 1999

Color photograph

40,6 × 30,5 cm

BRIXTON, 2002

Untitled, 2002 (Renata)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

BRIXTON, 2002

Untitled, 2002 (Red II)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

BRIXTON, 2002

Untitled, 2002 (Curtain)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

Installation view, Architectures of Life, 2021, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan

Installation view, Architectures of Life, 2021, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan

THERE IS SOMETHING I DO NOT KNOW, 2000 – 2013

Untitled, 2011 (Concamother)

Archival color pigment print

38 × 27,8 cm

THERE IS SOMETHING I DO NOT KNOW, 2000 – 2013

Untitled, 2011 (Jule)

Archival color pigment print

38 × 28 cm

THERE IS SOMETHING I DO NOT KNOW, 2000 – 2013

Untitled, 2011 (Greco)

Archival color pigment print

36,70 × 27 cm

THERE IS SOMETHING I DO NOT KNOW, 2000 – 2013

Untitled, 2011 (Pepe)

Archival color pigment print

41,53 × 28 cm

VIELSALM, 1999

Untitled, 1999 (Morning fog)

Color photograph

40 × 30 cm

VIELSALM, 1999

Untitled, 1999 (Waterfall)

Color photograph

40 × 30 cm

VIELSALM, 1999

Untitled, 1998 (Tree Sky)

Color photograph

40 × 30 cm

VIELSALM, 1999

Untitled, 1999 (Three Roofs)

Color photograph

40 × 30 cm

HERE, 1997 – 1998, 2002 – 2010 <br> Untitled, 1998 (Dilek)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

HERE, 1997 – 1998, 2002 – 2010 <br> Untitled, 2007 (Arles)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

HERE, 1997 – 1998, 2002 – 2010 <br> Untitled, 2003 (Pia)

Original c-print

60,7 × 50,6 cm

HERE, 1997 – 1998, 2002 – 2010 <br> Untitled, 2010 (Haniel)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

BEWOHNER, 1994 – 1996 <br> Untitled, 1995 (Airplane)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

BEWOHNER, 1994 – 1996 <br> Untitled, 1995 (Bus)

Original c-print

40,5 × 30,5 cm

Biography

Jitka Hanzlová was born in 1958 in Náchod, Czech Republic. She lives and works in Essen, Germany.
She works with Galleria Raffaella Cortese since 2000.

In over 30 years Hanzlová has portrayed the human, the urban, and nature in her photographic series: these are excerpts, moments of entirety, existing in relations that connect us to ourselves, to one another, us to nature and to every surrounding.

Deeply marked by her experience of exile at the beginning of the ‘80s and later return to her native country after the Velvet Revolution of ’89, Hanzlová has developed, step by step, her own visual language; with instinctive gaze focused on questioning identity and belonging, she looks through her subjects, seeking an inner matrix of existence. With time, experience and practice become the true concept behind her photography.

Starting with Rokytník (1990 — 1994) and until her latest Doorway (2022), Hanzlová’s photographs are silent appearances, in which one may gather signs of cultures and contexts she has chosen to capture: these images live within the bodies of her series and in her well-known publications, but also transcend them, drafting together a transforming texture of the world.

In 1993 Hanzlová was awarded the Dr. Otto-Steinert-Preis by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Photographie, in 1995 she received the DG BANK Frankfurt scholarship, in 2003 the Grand Prix Arles, and in 2007 the Paris Photo Prize for Contemporary Photography. She was twice nominee for The Citibank Photography Prize in London. Her noteworthy solo exhibitions include Doorway, Fotografia Europea festival _– a_n invincible summer, Reggio Emilia (2022); Architectures of life, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan (2021); Jitka Hanzlová. Silences, Národní Galerie, Prague (2019); National Gallery, Edinburgh (2012); Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid (2012); Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany (2005); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2001); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland (2001); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2000); Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany (1996). Selected group shows include Essere Umane, Musei San Domenico, Forlì, Italy (2021); SUBJECT and OBJECT. PHOTO RHINE RUHR, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (2020); NEUE WELTEN. Die Entdeckung der Sammlung, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany (2019); The Moment is Eternity – Works from the Olbricht Collection, ME Collectors Room, Berlin, Germany (2018); BEHOLD THE MAN, Kunstmuseum Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany (2017); The Photographic I – Other Pictures, S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium (2017); Portraits. Photographs from the MAPFRE Collection, Museo de la Ciudad de México, Mexico City (2017); Landscapes and People. From the Photographic Collection of the Albertina, Albertina Museum, Vienna (2016); Mit anderen Augen. Das Porträt in der zeitgenössischen Fotografie, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany (2016), travelled to Kunsthalle Nürnberg and Kunsthaus, Nürnberg, Germany (2016); Human Nature. Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Deutsche Börse AG, The Cube, Eschborn, Germany (2016), travelled to NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (2016).

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Gallery Exhibitions

Public exhibitions

JITKA HANZLOVÁ Identities
11 July – 26 October 2025
ALBERTINA MUSEUM, Wien
DOORWAY. Fotografia Europea
6 May – 12 June 2023
Palazzo da Mosto, Reggio Emilia, Italy
Essere Umane
18 September 2021 – 30 January 2022
Musei San Domenico, Forlì, Italy
SUBJECT and OBJECT. PHOTO RHINE RUHR
21 March – 16 August 2020
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Jitka Hanzlová. Silences
15 November 2019 – 16 February 2020
National Gallery Prague, Trade Fair Palace, Prague
Between Continuum
6 October – 2 December 2018
Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig

Press

Jitka Hanzlová, Silences
Doppiozero
February 10, 2020
Jitka Hanzlová: atención máxima
El Pais
July 26, 2012
Jitka Hanzlová
ZOOM
September-October 2006
Jitka Hanzlová
Artforum
2006
Vulnerabilità e cedevolezza, il nuovo ritratto fotografico sceglie la gente comune
Ipso Facto
May–August 2001

Publications

Walter Moser
Kehrer Verlag
Germany
2025
Silences
Edited by Adam Budak
König Books
London
2019
VANITAS
Edited by Barbara Hofmann-Johnson
König Books
London
2018
Cotton Rose
Texts by Ulf Erdmann-Ziegler
Steidl Verlag
Göttingen
2017
HORSE
Text by John Berger
König Books
London
2015
Hier
essay by Terezia Mora
Koenig Books
London
2013
Jitka Hanzlová
Text by Isabel Tejeda, Zdenek Felix, John Berger, Terezia Mora, Jesus Carillo Castillo
TF Editores
Madrid
2012
Forest
essay by John Berger
Steidl Verlag Göttingen
2005
Bewhohner
text by Urs Stahel
Fotomuseum Winterthur
2001
Female
text by Zdenek Felix and Peter Brinkemper
Schirmer
Mosel Verlag München, Deichtorhallen Hamburg
2000
Vielsalm
Sunparks Art Project
1999
Rokytnik
text by Leo-Fritz Gruber
Museum Schloss Hardenberg
1997

Focus