About the Artist

Chad Evans Wyatt is a portrait photographer working in the Washington, DC area since 1976. Born of musician parents, and growing up in New York and Paris, his career began in the portrayal of people in the arts. His work is included in the music divisions of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Gallery of Art, and in the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library. He has photographed five US Presidents, and many public figures, both for publication and privately.

Wyatt's early series, beginning in 1976: Music in the Home, National Gallery Orchestra, Army Band, Bicycle Messengers, Composers of Washington DC, Artists of the Arts District, and four architectural series, Scaffolds, Small Libraries, Small Bridges and Lost Forrest Glen.

He came to Prague in 1993, accompanying his wife in her successful search for family forty years silent behind the Iron Curtain. There he began what was to become 101: Artists in the Post-Revolution Czech Republic, a three-generation, cross-sectional documentation of creative people at work during the 90's, a reference-marker for that time of newly-found freedom. Starting with the November, 1999 tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, exhibitions of the 101 series continued for four years, on two continents. The 101 catalogue was named "Best Thematic Photo Book" at the 2001 Prague Book Fair.

During the realisation of 101, Wyatt came to see that a new kind of image of Roma in the Czech Republic was possible. The media there, as everywhere, had for decades followed the model of Josef Koudelka, with growing detachment from that artist's inspired vision. Images descended into stereotype. Seldom was reference made to the Roma professional and middle-class, let alone respected. Wyatt undertook to find and portray these achievers, and by their evidence, sought to break through common beliefs about the Roma as uneducable, irresponsible, without hope. Roma Rising/Romské obrození is the resulting series, finished in 2004, and now touring two continents. Wyatt reached back to the early 20th century example of August Sander in seeking a plain and respectful, honest portrayal of this group of mostly-unknowns, which collectively forms the basis for an emergence from the troubled past.

Exhibitions of the rr/ro began with a world-premi.re at the Muzeum romské kultury in Brno in June of 2004, and will continue for several years, in Europe, the US. rr/ro also has been included in the acclaimed group show "We Are What We Are" from the rotor group in Graz, Austria. That series travels Europe until 2007.

    ©2006 Chad Evans Wyatt Photo