PETRA SKOUPILOVÁ: FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY 1975–2003

Exhibition concept Zuzana Lednická & Pavel Vančát
Design Zuzana Lednická (Studio Najbrt) & Pavel Vančát (Word)
Consultation Helena Jarošová, Artarchiv.cz

The photographic archive of Petra Skoupilová is an exceptionally comprehensive testimony of a particular fashion and culture epoch, one that also opens the hitherto neglected genre of “fashion photography” in the Czech milieu, which certainly deserves deeper and more systematic interdisciplinary research. We are therefore pleased to introduce in this exhibition a richly illustrated book authored by Helena Jarošová and Pavel Vančát, with Zuzana Lednická as its graphic designer.

In September 1976 Skoupilová paid her first visit to Friendly Encounters at Bertramka – the then new, alternative jewellery exhibition event. The subsequent annual shows, which by then had expanded to include progressive fashion, brought her many important friendships and contacts, and during that so-called Normalization period also invaluable inspiration and motivation. Dating from then on was Petra Skoupilová’s collaboration with leading fashion designers (Liběna Rochová, Jaroslava Procházková, Daniela Flejšarová, Michal Švarc, and others) that culminated in the 1980s and 1990s with a large portfolio of photos published in magazines, advertisement campaigns and as documentary photographs. Skoupilová also photographed items of clothing made in Prague’s fashion salons (Styl, Eva) and the creations of young fashion designers and students of clothing manufacture schools, and made publicity photographs for the textile industry and foreign trade companies. Her photographs appeared on more than 150 covers of most Czech magazines