Jitka Hanzlová was born in 1958 in Náchod, Czech Republic. She lives and works in Essen, Germany.

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 WATER (2013 — 2019), 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 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).