5 October 2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the birth ofVáclav Havel will be celebrated for the 90th time. The Galerie nEUROPA run by Kultur Aktiv e.V. is marking this anniversary by paying tribute to this pioneer of democracy and human rights in East Central Europe – a staunch European who, as President, also championed German-Czech reconciliation – with an exhibition and a programme of accompanying events.

The photographer Bohdan Holomíček (born 1943) met Václav Havel on 4 May 1975 in Hrádeček and photographed him there for the first time. Havel liked the photographs, and a friendship developed, along with a deep bond of trust, between Bohdan Holomíček, Václav Havel and his wife Olga. Holomíček thus became the visual chronicler of Havel’s activities, particularly at his private estate in Hrádeček at the foot of the Krkonoše Mountains. There, he witnessed and documented Havel’s meetings with theatre people, writers, musicians and dissidents, as well as their artistic and political engagement with the conditions of real socialism in Czechoslovakia.

Holomíček remained Havel’s loyal companion, even after Havel was elected President of Czechoslovakia on 29 December 1989 as the Civic Forum’s candidate. Bohdan Holomíček took the last photographs of Václav Havel in 2011, a week before his death. Through his photographs, he shared with Havel scenes from the rehearsals for Havel’s latest play, ‘Asanace’ (Eng.: Renewal/Renovation), a production the author himself was no longer able to witness.

Bohdan Holomíček’s photographs are characterised by closeness and a profound intimacy. They reveal far more of Havel’s human greatness than official tributes ever could. The photographer does not see Havel primarily as a dissident, writer or president. Holomíček portrays Václav Havel as a human being.

Participating photographers

Bohdan Holomíček (CZ)

Curated by

Jan Oelker

The opening on 4 September 2026 will take place in the presence of the artist Bohdan Holomíček and the curator Jan Oelker.

To mark Havel’s 90th birthday, we are organising an event on 5 October 2026 a reading and a discussion with Jana Krötzsch on Havel’s long-lost manuscript ‘I’ve hidden it somewhere’ – Notes on the ‘Charter Year’ 1977.

For the closing event of the exhibition on 13 November 2026, we invite you, as part of the 28th Czech-German Cultural Days 2026, to a artist talk with Bohdan Holomíček entitled ‘Václav Havel: The Man’ at the nEUROPA Gallery.

Kultur Aktiv – Václav Havel – Photographs by Bohdan Holomíček

This exhibition is sponsored by the Ostsächsische Sparkasse Dresden. The ‘Galerie nEUROPA’ project is funded by the Saxon State Ministry for Social Affairs, Health and Social Cohesion. This initiative is co-funded by taxpayers’ money on the basis of the budget adopted by the Saxon State Parliament as part of the funding programme ‘Wir für Sachsen’