THE photographer Ivan Kyncl became a familiar face on the British theatrical scene within a few years of his arrival in London in 1980, a stateless refugee, speaking no English, with only his camera. From that time onwards his varied work reflected the British theatre’s appreciation of his talent. Many directors and playwrights would, indeed, require that he be their production photographer.

Ivan Kyncl, who was born in Prague in 1953, became a photographer almost by chance when his father, Karel, a broadcaster, lost his job after Soviet tanks ended the 1968 “Prague Spring”. Karel was jailed and, as was the way, his son also paid the price for his father’s refusal to bow to oppression. He was barred from going to university, so he took a course in photography.

After the Helsinki accord of 1975, many in the Soviet bloc saw the commitment to human rights and legality as a way of holding their dictatorial rulers to account. In Czechoslovakia, Charter 77 spearheaded the human-rights movement, and Kyncl was its photographer. His evocative photographs of his fellow Charter 77 signatories and their lives, taken at great risk to himself — he was arrested several times and beaten up — constitute a history lesson from a man who was himself part of the events depicted. Until Vaclav Havel’s emergence from prison and virtual house arrest to become his country’s President in the 1989 Velvet Revolution, the pictures that the West saw of him were largely those taken by Ivan Kyncl.

Probably the first theatre where Kyncl photographed was in Prague, the Living Room Theatre of the actress Vlasta Chramostova. Barred from her profession by the authorities, she instead made a theatre of her own flat, and Kyncl somehow even managed a blurry, yet telling, photograph of the audience being detained by police.

In 1985 Terry Hands, head of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was looking for a theatre photographer who was essentially an artist — and found Kyncl. By the time of his death from a heart attack, Kyncl had worked on more than a thousand productions across the spectrum of Britain’s theatres.

At the Royal National Theatre he photographed 61 productions, over many years. Nicholas Hytner, head of the National Theatre, said of Kyncl: “He funnelled more life and energy through his lens than you dared hope existed on the stage. He could capture an entire show in a single shot.”

Terry Hands called him “the Cartier-Bresson of theatre photographers”.

Harold Pinter welcomed him to Britain and from their first meeting insisted that Kyncl photograph his work. Kyncl also worked in opera, and in film with the director Roger Michell. Those who commissioned his work ranged from Arthur Miller to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Theatres where he worked also included the Royal Court, the Donmar Warehouse, the Sheffield Theatres, as well as West End houses.

At a gathering at the National Theatre to remember Kyncl, Ian McDiarmid — for whom Kyncl worked throughout his and Jonathan Kent’s directorship of the Almeida Theatre — recalled the way that Kyncl would run around, ceaselessly seeking the right shot, and he paid tribute to his ability to understand a production and capture its meaning in the moment or, as Kyncl put it, “in the minute”. Despite his endearingly imperfect English, Kyncl was the best of communicators.

To those who likened photography to painting, Kyncl would explain that whereas a painter starts with nothing and puts things in, a photographer starts with everything and takes things out.

In 1985 he married Alena, the daughter of Czech refugees. Herself an artist, she assisted his work, helping in the choice of pictures and layout of front-of-house boards.

Friends remember a man of immense generosity, integrity, warmth and kindness. He was never starstruck, never dropped names: “I photo him”, would be his modest response to a friend’s mention of, say, an actor with whom he had worked. He took British citizenship, and loved this country — perhaps above all for its tolerance.

He is survived by his wife.

Ivan Kyncl, theatre photographer, was born on April 15, 1953. He died of a heart attack on October 6, 2004, aged 51.