Freedom is hard work, but it’s worth it
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Ivan Prokop was born on June 9, 1954 in Prague into a Jewish family. However, he did not know about his Jewish background for a long time; both his parents lost their families during the war and refused to pass on this traumatic experience. Ivan’s brother Michal, who is from his father’s first marriage and is eight years older than him, played an important formative role in his life. He opened him the door to the world of music, which Ivan Prokop never left. From the age of fifteen he began to take photographs, and later, thanks to his apprenticeship as a production graphic designer, he acquired the necessary technical knowledge of working with photography. He worked as a graphic designer in the Polygrafia printing house and later in the Panorama printing house, and many interesting and representative books, record covers and posters passed through his hands. However, his life is firmly linked to the Jazz Section, as he devoted all his energy to its activities in the field of music, visual arts and literature. He also witnessed the gradual increase in repression against the activities of the Section and even the arrests of the members of the Section when the pressure was at its peak. Later he himself was interrogated by the StB (State Security) in connection with the imprisonment of Petr Cibulka. As a photographer, he is behind many reports from the music world, and participated in key concerts of the time, such as the 1987 festival in Lipnice, where Václav Havel performed, or the Joan Baez concert two years later, which also produced the legendary photograph of Václav Havel carrying the American singer-songwriter’s guitar. In 1991, he began working at Bonton, where many important audio storages and album covers were created under his direction. In 2005 he founded his own selective publishing house Animal Music with Petr Ostrouchov. Ivan Prokop has always been and still is a tireless organizer of cultural events, holding exhibitions at Café Kampus and founding the internationally recognized Jazz World Photo competition. In 2022 he lived in Prague.
