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

Her biography and photographic oeuvre reflect the historical changes of political nature and elaborate an identity formation of a future emancipated subject. Her oeuvre carries a silence; each image seems a vehicle of silence. It delivers a stillness; not the stillness of the photographic medium though as Hanzlová’s pictures are moments set in motion; we trace them, follow them, step by step, frame by frame, location by location. Eyes confronting eyes, quietly, in expectation. Silence appears always in plural, silence with a companion of silence in a looped sequence of absence and presence.

In her portraits, Hanzlová achieves the effect often found in painting while also allowing her subjects to stand out in a sharp focus that highlights the nuances of their inner world. Hanzlová studies the relationships between people and the surrounding space.

In 1993 she 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. Hanzlová has presented her work at collective exhibitions all over the world; her noteworthy solo exhibitions include those at the Národní Galerie in Prague (2019), at the National Gallery in Edinburgh (2012) and at Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid (2012), at Museum Folkwang in Essen (2005), at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (2001), at Fotomuseum Winterthur (2001), at Deichtorhallen in Hamburg (2000) and at Kunstverein in Frankfurt (1996).