Tomáš Leňo

Čas vie svoje / výstava

Biography

Mgr. Tomáš Leňo (*1964, Humenné) is a Slovak documentary photographer, publicist, and journalist, and a graduate of the Faculty of Arts of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Prešov (1989). He has worked in cultural institutions and, from 2002 to 2008, served as Director of the Vihorlat Library in Humenné.
He has been systematically engaged in photography since the early 1980s. During his university studies, he already received awards at national and international photography competitions. His work was subsequently included in important publications documenting the development of Slovak photography, including History of Slovak Photography by Ľudovít Hlaváč (1989), Contemporary Slovak Photography by Václav Macek (1991), and Lost Time? Slovakia 1969–1989 in Documentary Photography (2007).
Together with Jozef Ondzik, he is the co-author of the long-term documentary project and monograph Ruthenians, which captures the life, traditions, and transformation of the Ruthenian community. Photography historian and theorist Václav Macek praised the project as evidence that photographic works of international significance are also being created in Slovakia, capable of standing alongside the work of world-renowned documentarists such as Robert Capa and Lewis W. Hine.
A special place in Leňo’s work is occupied by the series The Demolition of Josef Sudek’s Studio, created on July 17, 1989, in Újezd, Prague. Of the original 72 photographs, 24 are presented here as an immediate visual testimony to the disappearance of the photographer’s legendary studio.
In his series My Balkans, Leňo documented the countries of the former Yugoslavia and, through a personal documentary approach, also explored his family roots in Vojvodina. His photographs have been exhibited in Slovakia and abroad. In 2000, he was the only Slovak photographer represented at the international exhibition Dancing through Time in Milan, where his work was shown alongside that of such prominent photographers as Sebastião Salgado and Josef Koudelka.
Leňo’s work is rooted in the tradition of humanistic documentary photography and focuses on people, their identity, environment, and cultural memory.
In November 2026, the Month of Photography International Festival in Bratislava will present his solo exhibition The Demolition of Josef Sudek’s Studio, Prague, Újezd, July 17, 1989.