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• St Vitus Cathedral, 1924–8
A life lived
The title ‘Poet of Prague’ was applied to Josef Sudek by Life magazine in 1970 when he was in his seventies, although it was a label that had accompanied the one-armed photographer carting his equipment around his home town from much earlier. Sudek was born in 1896 and when he died in 1976 the writer and curator Anna Farova retrieved much of his work from his studio which – going by the interior shots of his workplace featured in this volume – must have been some task! He fought as an infantryman in the First World War – drafted in 1915 despite his draft card stating he was unfit for military combat – by which time he had already begun amassing an album of small images of Prague: landscapes and architectural exteriors and interiors. He was wounded by shrapnel during the summer of 1917 and subsequently, despite several operations, his doctors were faced with no option but to amputate his right arm. After the War and recuperation, Sudek continued to practise as an amateur photographer and then in 1921 applied to study at the State School of Graphic Arts where, in 1922, he was admitted on a scholarship, having somewhat exaggerated the extent of his destitution. (This economical use of the truth in matters financial would extend to dealings with the tax authorities in later years.) He graduated in 1924 and in the same year founded the Czech Photographic Society with colleagues Jaromir Funke and Adolf Schneeberger, they having been expelled from all amateur societies for their outspoken and unconventional views on photography. His professional career began in 1927 when he leased a shared studio where he was successful as what nowadays would be termed a ‘GP’ photographer. He was also successful in selling prints and was an enthusiastic exhibitor. But of course it is for the art of his photography, the ‘poetry’ of his images, that he is now remembered; and through this book’s 130 tritone reproductions and Farova’s well-researched essay, we revisit a very full and evocative life.
Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague, A Photographer’s Life, essay by Anna Farova, published by Aperture, $40.00, ISBN 0 89381 386 9.
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