Born in Moravia, he made his first photographs while a student in the 1950s, at about the same time that he started his career as an aeronautical engineer. In 1961 he began photographing Gypsies in Czechoslovakia and theatre in Prague. He turned full-time to photography in 1967. The following year, Koudelka photographed the Soviet invasion of Prague, publishing his photographs under the initials P. P. (Prague Photographer) for fear of reprisal to him and his family. In 1969, he was anonymously awarded the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Gold Medal for those photographs.

Koudelka left Czechoslovakia seeking political asylum in 1970 and shortly afterwards joined Magnum Photos. In 1975, he brought out his first book “Gypsies” and in 1988 the “Exiles”. Since 1986, he has been working with a panoramic camera and has issued a compilation of such photographs in his book “Chaos” in 1999. Koudelka has had many of his work published, including most recently the “Invasion Prague 68″ in 2008. He has won significant awards such as the Prix Nadar (1978), a Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989), a Grand Prix Cartier-Bresson (1991) and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (1992). Significant exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography (New York), the Hayward Gallery (London), the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art (Amsterdam) and the Palais de Tokyo (Paris).