Josef Sudek

[connealy]

I mentioned in a recent thread that I had found at a local bookstore a

copy of an Aperture book,<u> Josef Sudek, Poet of Prague: A

Photographer's Life</u>. I went back and purchased the book and am

very happy I did so as it is the most inspiring book on photography

that I have found in a long time.

<br>    Sudek was an eccentric Czech photographer whose

career outlived the Austro-Hungarian Empire and survived the Nazi and

Russian occupations of his country. Thoughout this long period he

produced a steady stream of completely original work that withstood a

barrage of criticism from every quarter. He explored themes over

periods of many years with an emphasis on subtle gradations of

tonality which he got often from contact prints made from the

negatives out of a view camera which he trundled around the country

with his one good arm, the other having been lost on the Italian Front

in WWI. Sudek is also justly famous for his exhaustive exploration

of <a href="http://www.afterimagegallery.com/dlsudek.htm">the

panoramic image</a>. Here is an excerpt from the narrative by Anna

Farova about the making of those images that seems especially relevant

to this forum:

<br><br>

    "Sudek's fascination with the panoramic image dated back

to his early youth, when he had first created a wide-angle landscape

by pasting two prints together. He also remembered an American-made

panoramic camera he had seen in a catalogue during those years, and

immediately after World War II began his search for what was now an

antique. Sudek was then visiting and photographing Frenstát in

the Beskyd Mountains, and was obsessed by the possibilities of the

panoramic landscape. Finally, he chanced upon the camera, old and

neglected, sitting on a shelf in the home of an acquaintance. Sudek

received the camera a a gift, and then used all of his legendary

patience to make it workable.

<br>    After months spent finding a replacement for the

moth-eaten leather on the camera, Sudek then discovered there were no

film rolls to fit the format. Kodak, which had made the camera in

1894, had long abandoned its film. Using German stock, Sudek created

his own film by cutting and splicing. A shipyard welder devised a

metal plate that had to be knocked into place to hold the film, and

could only be unloaded by knocking it free which meant Sudek

had to return to his studio to unload. Rothmayer then suggested Sudek

have a large bag made for unloading. Sudek gradually brought the

archaic instrument under control, coordinating his one good hand and

arm, and his teeth. It was an extraordinary feat, but given his

descriptions of those early attempts, it was clear that this challenge

was only the beginning: <br><br>

<i>Using this box camera completely changed the space. The

persopective was different...what had been intended as a dominant

suddenly wasn't the most important thing at all...I found out I had to

look as if I were the camera.</i>..."

[xenotar28]

Hi Mike:

 

I have admired your work for a long time and agree with you about Josef Sudek. He is my absolute favorite, both as a photographer, and as a man of guts. He did not have an easy personal or artistic life, but plowed on in spite of his hardships. His interiors and still lives are stamped with the same lyrical vision of his outdoor work, and are proof that a great photographer finds art in things that most of us ignore. Definitely a man to emulate anytime, but especially when things are hard.

[rj]

It's a seminal book, although I hesitate in understanding Sudek's originality as eccentric. Along with Pierre Borhan's monograph on Andre Kertesz, these two books are possibly the most inspiring ones I've encountered, spending hours as a photography student poring wistfully over these pages.

[connealy]

RJ, you are right that "eccentric" probably applies very little as a description of Sudek's art which was very clearly conceived. I was thinking more of the life style of him and his sister who collected so many things in their small home that Sudek finally had to move out to another apartment. On the other hand, perhaps his art would not have happened without that fantasic accumulation.

[jorn ake]

According to several people who knew Sudek and his sister, Bozena Sudkova, she was a master printer and may have helped print many of his images for him. If you come to Prague, there are two ateliers for Sudek - one up near the Castle on Uvoz, and one down the hill near the river on Ujezd. Both are worth a visit, but the Ujezd atelier, which is in a courtyard reached by walking through two apartment passages, has a film of Sudek setting up his big 8x10 camera using his teeth. According to Zdenek Kirchner, every Christmas, Sudek would give each of his friends a print wrapped in paper at his atelier on Ujezd, admonishing them not to open it until Christmas day. Then he would walk them from the atelier to the street, say goodbye and then go back inside. They would wait until his footsteps grew faint and then they would all rip open their prints and look at them under the streetlamps. They couldn't wait. Sudek's panoramic camera is now in the Technological Museum I think. There is a very depressing photograph of Sudek writing a letter of regret to the museum in New York (MOMA?) that did a major retrospective of his work in the '70s, telling them he would not be able to attend the show as he had not been granted travel rights by the Czech communist government. I do know that small prints of his work made during his life can still be purchased for as little as $2000. His larger photographs, especially the series of photographs out his studio window or in his garden, go for a lot more. Photoreview (www.photoreview.org) has frequently had prints of Sudek's available during their fund raising auctions. Finally, if you can find it (as I have mentioned before) I think the best panoramic images Sudek did are actually his images of the Most mining region of the Czech Republic, called Smutna Krajna or Sad Landscape. I have seen the monograph of those images on www.abebooks.com. Excellent. He is described in that book as waiting for hours until the light was perfect and only then taking his photograph. Now that I know more about his camera, I can understand why! Thanks Mike!

 

Link to Sudek's atelier (restored) on Ujezd:

 

http://www.sudek-atelier.cz/default_en.htm

 

Link to Czech publishing house of photography, Torst, which does great "pocket" books of Czech photographers which can be gotten through Photoeye Books:

 

http://www.torst.cz

[Guest]

I'm on to it Mike. Thanks.

[connealy]

Jorn,<br>

I knew you would have some interesting details to add about Sudek's career. Even though he was in some major shows here and is well known to collectors, it doesn't seem like his very unique work has had the level of attention from American photographers that it deserves.<br>     I forgot to mention that the book I acquired in addition to fine writing has a very good selection of Sudek's pictures spanning his whole production. The dark, subtle tonalities of many of his photographs show up poorly on line, so it is important to have some better source of reproductions to learn about his work. The original Aperture hardback edition of my book is apparently hard to come by now, but mine is a soft-cover printed in Germany, and it may show up in used book stores at an affordable price. I'm sure he is represented in many collections here as well, and I am certainly going to make an effort to see some of his work through the original prints.

[jorn ake]

I am probably being a bit nostalgic too, now that I am leaving.

 

Here is a link to the Kodak model that Sudek used. I saw one for sale recently somewhere, but the bellows were trashed. Seemed like a lot of work though I was tempted.

 

http://www.vintagephoto.tv/no1panoram.shtml

 

And here is an interesting write-up (on Harvard University's servers no less) about Sudek.

 

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sawyer/Sudek.htm#top

 

I think the museum show that I referred to above must have been the Eastman House show in 1974, not a NYC show. Sonja Bullaty was a studio assistant for a while, but now she is a famous photographer in her own right. Anna Farova is the Czech expert on photography and has had an instrumental role in many Czech photographers' careers, for better or worse (there are always these figures in history, aren't there?)

 

I think a lot of people who look at his work and consider the political situation in which he created that work, begin to think of Sudek as a victim. Instead, he seems to have flourished in spite of his environment or perhaps even because of his environment. I can only guess that after losing his arm in the war, whatever came afterwards might have been frustrating but not insurmountable.

[jeff bishop]

I have Josef Sudek Panorama, a book written in Czech??? Can't understand a word of it, however the photographs are great!

 

This thread has given me a better insight to Sudek.

 

Thank you!