ABOUT THE BOOK

Photographer - Josef Sudek

Edited and preface by Zdenek Kirschner

Josef Sudek, long considered one of the great early masters of photography, created a rich body of work, never before assembled for publication. This deluxe monograph of over two hundred magnificent duotone reproductions, many previously unpublished, is the first full-scale representation of Sudek's poetic genius.

Born in 1896 in Czech Bohemia, Sudek, who began as a bookbinder, lost his right arm in the Great War before he reached the age of twenty. He thus became a singularly determined photographer: one-armed, he hauled his equipment in a backpack, with tripod in hand, through the streets and countryside of Prague over the next five decades. He captured the lyrical spirit of his city, through its landscape and architecture, its gardens and statuary, and its everyday objects, unlike any other photographer of his time. Sudek's pictures show not just his mastery of technique, but his unique ability to humanize the inanimate, drawing out the emotion and warmth of a stone cathedral, a tree, or a water glass. Ignoring the ascendant tenets of Social Realism at the time, Sudek, who once said "all mystery lies in the shadow areas," remained a staunchly independent artist, whose vision was deeply personal, haunting and unabashedly romantic.