The Great Czech

Today is the birthday of the great Bohemian Josef Sudek, one of the fathers of 20th-century photography in the Czech nation, which has always punched above its weight in our art. Fittingly, Penny L. Richards has posted a nice note about him at Temple University's Disability Studies blog (Sudek, who lived to be an old man, lost his right arm in WWI).

Her link to "Josef Sudek's work" leads to a nice and fairly extensive gallery of his pictures online. Just a sampling—still reductive—but a good one.

Mike
(Thanks to William Stothers)

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Featured Comment by Michal Daniels: "Did you know that at the end of his life Sudek made three color photos? Two of them were on the front and back covers of Revue Fotografie 89. The translation of the editorial note at bottom of the last text page of the magazine says: 'Shortly before his death, Josef Sudek could not resist the temptation of color. Three compositions, now in the collection of Umeleckoprumyslove Museum in Prague, are the only color photos in Sudek's work. Two of them are on the covers of this issue.' I own a c-print of the one on the back cover. It's presently on loan to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which will exhibit it in their upcoming Czech Photography exhibit. Here is a link to the front and back cover of Revue Fotografie 89, along with the Sudek article."

Featured Comment by Bill Poole: "I have been a fan since I came upon a slim Artfoto collection of his work in a used bookstore some years back. (Text by Jan Rezac in Czech with an English translation. 1994. Pretty good reproductions.)

"There are three images of Sudek by Rezac in the front of the book, including one of him trudging through a rainy park with the 8x10 camera, open, over his good shoulder (the one with the arm).

"Romantic? I guess so. To me it looks like he photographed what he found beautiful—a reasonable and perhaps redemptive way to spend a life after seeing the horrors of WWI. Very complex and lovely images. In a word: art."

Featured Comment by Vladimir: "As a young boy, living in then Czechoslovakia, I was at the school excursion in 'Cesky Raj'—Bohemian Eden, a very dramatic country of eroded sandstone rocks. There we met an old, 'scruffy' looking man, with one arm, carrying big wooden tripod and large, I think,wooden camera over the shoulder. I knew about him so I recognised who he was. He lived in very modest home/studio near Vltava river in Prague."

Comments

[Penny]

I appreciate the mention!

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

I thought for a moment you were referring to André Kertész, in my mind perhaps the greatest ever, but no, he was Hungarian, I see.

[Mike Johnston]

Eolake,
Right, and Brassaï was Transylvanian, if I remember correctly.

Mike

[Ken Tanaka]

Coincidentally, I recently got a copy of Sudek's body of work titled "From My Studio Window". It's the first look I've had a a broad, contiguous group of his images. Quite captivating.

[Will]

Not that this is an altogether appropriate tangent, but it seems that being a photographer without a right arm would be extraordinarily difficult. Ergonomically, I can think of no cameras that could be operated with one hand that wouldn't demand that that hand be the right one. I'm assuming Sudek worked in large format, which would present its own share of problems, but it put the question in my mind: have there been any left-handed models of cameras produced that anyone knows of?

[John Sartin]

I was fortunate enough to see a show of Sudek prints in Prague. It seemed to be very special to see this work in his homeland. He is definitely a revered artist in the Czech Republic.

[Peter.]

Speaking of notable Czechs, it's hard not to think of Drtikol and Koudelka.

[Jeffrey Byrnes]

This photo does resemble a Kertész. Either way I was unaware of who Josef Sudek was until this post. Thanks for the new addition to my resource of photographers.

[Nigel]

He is, to me, the greatest of the Czech photographers and one whose work is instantly recognisable.
A good friend of mine once said: "It takes me a minute to realise how little I know about light when I see his photographs." I told my mate he was a bit slow, as it took me three seconds.

[Mike C.]

Sudek is The Man, the patron saint of "something out of nothing", which for me is the height of photographic seeing. He can be a little too romantic for some contemporary tastes, but the various series he made in domestic gardens around Prague will repay anybody's serious study.

I like the idea of "photographers' birthdays", btw, if you're still looking for ideas for regular slots. I think we'd all enjoy your riffs on the theme of what's notable about notable photographers.

[Geoff McCann]

Wonderful.
Whilst on the subject of great Czech photographers, don't forget
Jindricht Streit, who is alive & kicking.

Cheers

Geoff

[sebastel]

another underrated czech photographer worth while mentioning is Frantisek Drtikol (just my opinion). completely different style, though.

[Doug Howk]

"The Poet of Prague" used a large format camera (8X10) one armed, simply amazing. His pictures are lyrical, rather than documentary or reportage. And he would manipulate the scene, such as kicking up dust in an old church, to get the effect he wanted.

[Carl Leonardi]

I highly recommend this book. The reproduction of the photo's are the best I have seen--Sheet-fed gravure and only printed on one side--every page is a masterpiece in it's own right. If framed they probably are better then the originals.
This is the "SUDEK" Sonja Bullaty ISBN 0-517-56419-X book.
I have another Sudek book-ISBN 1-881616-09-6 nice with different photo's--but the Bullaty book is the charm.
For some reason it's the book I look at when I'm down and out and need a lift. Every page is worth many times the price of the whole book.

[John Camp]

I sometimes think American photographers got sucked into ideologies ("straight photography," f64, etc.) that prevented them from doing explorations like Sudek's. His stuff is really wonderful. I tried to buy a windowsill print years ago, checked several galleries that advertised his name among their artists, and none of them had one...

He is not, by the way, to be confused with another Czech with a look-alike name, Jan Saudek. 8-)

JC

[B Grace]

Note to Carl Leonardi: I have "SUDEK" by Sonja Bullaty as well. My copy is ISBN: 0-517-532948 and is signed by Bullaty as number 205 of 500 with a 1978 date on the title page. From my offset printing days during school I will say the quality of the printing of the images is outstanding. I'm afraid I do not know the origin of my copy. It is indeed a masterpiece deserving of a nice spot on my book shelf.

[Michal Daniel]

Evald Shorm made a documentary film about Josef Sudek, called "Josef Sudek očima Evalda Schorma" (Josef Sudek Via Eval Schrom's Eyes). Here it is on YouTube, in two parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx86tXQWzJ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0s-GFWfzM0

I love how in part two, the filmmaker left in all the times Sudek stops, sets down the camera, looks, nothing. Picks up the gear, and on again... Nothing better defines my favorite saying of Sudek's, "Hurry slowly."

[Michal Daniel]

Sorry, mistakes in my last post about the documentary! It's called, "Žít svůj život" (Living One's Life) I mistakenly translated the description, the last time. And I spelled almost every name wrong, I thing. Sorry. I'm a photographer, not a brain surgeon. ;-)