The images of two lives — both from the same family and both spent behind the lens of a camera, but each shaped by the communist era in different ways — can now be viewed within a single frame.

The work of acclaimed photographers Václav and Jiří Jírů is on display at the new Jírů Photo Museum in Prague 2. The site is more of a storefront-turned-gallery, but Jiří, the founder, doesn't like the term "gallery." It's overused, he says.

Perhaps museum is an apt term. From the Nazi occupation through the Soviet occupation to the Velvet Revolution, the careers of the uncle and nephew encompass more than 75 years of East European history. As historical documentation, the images are strong. As works of art, they are just as impressive.

Jiří goes to Russia

Jiří Jírů doesn't want to reveal how old he is. "I'm like a prima donna ballerina that way," he says. But he is at the age where a friend, upon hearing that he was opening a museum, told Jírů he was so old that should call it a mausoleum.

Still, it's hard to view him that way. As Jírů tells his story and that of his uncle Václav, an energy seems to fill his Jaromírova street studio. Dates and numbers shift in the telling, sometimes within the same story. But it's understandable coming from someone whose life has been as full as Jírů's.

The younger Jírů was born in Prague, and quickly took to photography thanks to his uncle, Václav. Just as Soviet tanks pulled into Prague in 1968, Jiří, who was working as a photographer's assistant, pulled out. He fled to Belgium, where he thrived in exile. Working as a freelancer, Jírů spent the next quarter-century taking photographs for such publications as TIME, National Geographic and Sports Illustrated. He became a Belgian national and thus avoided a two-year prison sentence imposed by the Czechoslovak government in his absence.

Jírů gained global notoriety for his images in a People magazine feature titled "People Goes to Russia." The series offered one of the few opportunities during the Cold War for Westerners to peek behind the Iron Curtain and see the daily lives of Russians.

Because of his work, he was invited to Prague in 1993 to work as the official photographer for newly installed Czech President Václav Havel. The gig culminated in the photo book Havel.

But Jírů tired of politics, and has begun focusing on nude portraiture. "Now I want to be strictly in the artistic field," he says.

Raising the dead

There is only one subject Jírů speaks about with more passion than his work: his uncle Václav.

"He was a bigger shot than I am, but unknown," Jírů says. Not unknown, but perhaps underappreciated, which is why Jírů says he founded the museum. "I had to do it because of my uncle — to dig him out of the ground. He has been buried for 25 years."

An important figure in his own right, Václav was a prolific photographer. Throughout the mid-20th century, he published 12 books of his work. He also served as editor-in-chief of Fotografie, a quarterly magazine that he started in 1958 and ran through the '60s.

But Václav's professional career suffered because of a political stance. In spite of being a member of the Communist Party, he was fired from the magazine he founded, Jírů says, for not signing the obligatory agreement to the Russian invasion.

With his nephew in exile, Václav's estate was doled out all over the Czech Republic upon his death in 1980. Jírů began searching for the missing work two years ago, buying back some of it. There are nearly 10,000 negatives in national archives, he says, but another 5,000 are "somewhere else," adding, "I'm skeptical that they will be found."

The biggest payment

If the first goal of Jírů's new photo museum is to help bring the work of his uncle back to life, resurrecting the surrounding area is the second.

The shop sits in the shadow of Nuselský most, better known as Suicide Bridge for its occasional jumpers. The dingy buildings below are splashed with neon light from all the hernas lining the streets. "There is no culture at all," Jírů says.

But he hopes that will change. With the opening of the museum, Jírů believes others will see the area as a viable place for the arts. As a property owner in the area, his interest in improving it is more than passing.

Jírů says he is planning a catalog to accompany the current exhibit, which focuses on human subjects. Future exhibits will feature animals and nature. He is also trying to exhibit the works in other cities, and plans to reprint some of Václav's books.