Josef Jindřich Šechtl
His father, Ignác Šechtl, had opened his photographic studio in Tábor in 1876, and thus Josef Jindřich was influenced by photography from his childhood.
At 22, after serving in the army (1898–1899), he started work in the affiliated Šechtl & Voseček studio in Černovice u Tábora, a town near Tábor.
The earliest of these larger photo essays — from an exhibition in Sedlčany, the Sokol gymnastic festival (Slet), or the arrival of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I — contained about twenty photographs each.
Anna loved art, and thanks to her charm the family befriended several artists living in Tábor, in particular the sculptor Jan Vítězslav Dušek.
Much more disastrous for his life than the fire was the death of Anna from a kidney disorder in 1925 just six months after, and precipitated by, the birth of their son, Josef Ferdinand Ignác.
His second marriage, to teacher Božena Bulínová, in 1926, wasn't as happy; and Josef Jindřich began to concentrate more on work in the studio and less on family life.
His collected work on 35mm much of it for the illustrated weekly Pestrý týden, gives an interesting insight into the daily life of the photographer, his vacations in Jáchymov and Yugoslavia, and his trip to the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936 with his friend the sculptor Jan Vítězslav Dušek, as well as events of the Second World War and the early years of communist Czechoslovakia.
Josef Jindřich Šechtl did a number of works in fine art photography; however, most of these photographic prints either have been lost or are in private collections.
However, within these limits, he captured a number of important historical events, and portrayed in great detail life in the Czech countryside.
The communist regime was afraid of what might be seen in Josef Jindřich's photo essays made during the Nazi occupation, and particularly worried that its own members might be revealed as having collaborated.
[8] In the 1970s the syndicate was relocated to the main square and the Tábor studio destroyed to allow the Hotel Palcát to be built in its place.
The studio in Pelhřimov (an important example of functionalist architecture by Karel Chochola) survived but was significantly damaged by being abandoned and allowed to decay for years.
