Markéta LUSKACOVA

BIOGRAPHY

Markéta Luskacova (Czech, b. 1944)

Born in Prague, Markéta Luskacova studied Social Science at Charles University, Prague, graduating in 1968. She attended photography courses at Prague's Film and Television School, initially undertaken only to enable Luskacova to supplement her thesis on religious pilgrims in Slovakia with images. However, this project proved to be the trigger for a fundamental shift away from written academic analysis of communities in favour of an exclusively photographic approach.

In 1970, Luskacova moved to London, where she continues to live and work. Here, she began to photograph the areas of Brick Lane and Spitalfields, a long-term project that documented the street markets as well as immigrant communities. In the late 1970s, her focus turned towards the photographing of childhood. Luskacova's work has been exhibited at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool, the Victoria and Albert Museum and Whitechapel Gallery, London and Tate Britain. Her photographs are held in the collections of the British Arts Council, the Bibiothèque Nationale in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Slovakian Nationale Gallery, Bratislava and the National Portrait Gallery, London amongst numerous others.