"František Drtikol was born in Pribram on 3rd March, 1883. After years of learning and studies in Munich he opens a studio of his own in Prague. The beginning of his creative work closely relates to the atmosphere at the turn of the century. In addition to photographs there is a number of graphic art pieces and drawings with the theme of the woman in Jugendstill and Symbolism as well as the first pictorialistically composed nudes which are very near to trends at the time represented by photographs made by Robert Demachy or graphics and paintings by Edward Munch, Franz Von Stuck, Félicien Rops or Fernand Khnopff. His central motif becomes to be a stylized yet veristic depiction of a woman's body.

The melancholic sadness and latent eroticism of the first attempts are gradually replaced by more dramatically concepted motifs of temptation and destruction...A determining artistic method becomes the sharp light and casted shadow. Models in expressive dynamic posturings are placed in these decorations and often photographed as mere fragments (legs, body, without head...)." ('František Drtikol 1883 - 1961, um dos clássicos da fotografia', March 2004)