Public access description

Josef Sudek (born 17 March 1896, Kolín, Bohemia, died 15 September 1976, Prague) was one of the twentieth century’s undisputed masters of photography, whose career stretched over 60 years. Sudek trained as a bookbinder and took up photography at around the age of 17 when he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army and served at the Italian front. Here, he was injured by a grenade splinter leading eventually to the amputation of his right arm. After his recovery, Sudek’s disability meant he had to abandon bookbinding as a profession and instead enrolled in 1922 to study photography at the School of Graphic Arts in Prague. He is best known for his images of the city where he then spent most of his working life, combining commercial projects with personal work.

Sudek’s work synthesises the dominant 20th century photographic styles of Pictorialism, and Modernism alongside Surrealism to create a unique vision with an intensely lyrical quality. After 1940, Sudek chose predominantly to make small ‘contact prints’ from glass negatives which, because they were not enlarged, preserved the detail in the image. His personal images are primarily poetic statements, to be read as a metaphor for the boundaries between the exterior and interior world, thought and observation, clarity and mystery and the material and the ephemeral. His work deals with questions about photography as a mediator between such thresholds and his chosen motifs – of twilight scenes and images of windows – express these ideas. His works often have a suggestive quality shown by his fondness for shadowy areas and low-key prints. His own motto and advice to students: ‘hurry slowly’ encapsulates his legendary patience and the atmosphere of contemplative stillness in his photographs.

