Josef Sudek
Josef Sudek (March 17, 1896 - September 15, 1976) was a legendary Czech photographer. He was born in the industrial town of Kolin, Bohemia, at a time when a Czech nation was just a romantic dream.
Originally a bookbinder by trade, he was badly injured in 1916 during action by the Hungarian Army on the Italian Front of the First World War. He was given a camera afterwards; although he had no previous experience with photography and was one-handed due to an amputation. He learned photography for two years in Prague from 1922, under the tuitition of Jaromir Funke. His Army disability pension gave him some leeway to make art, and he worked during the 1920s in the romantic Pictorialist style, but always pushed at the boundaries of that form - he was expelled from a local camera club for arguing about the need to move forwards from 'painterly' photography. This led to Sudek founding the progressive Czech Photographic Society in 1924. Despite only having one arm, he always used large bulky cameras, managing to work with the aid of assistants.
His photography is sometime said to be modernist. But this is only true of a couple of years in the 1930s, during which he undertook commercial photography and thus worked "in the style of the times". Primarily, his personal photography is neo-romantic.
His early work included many series of light falling in the interior of St. Vitus cathederal. During and after the Second World War Sudek created haunting night-scapes and panoramas of Prague, photographed the wooded landscape of Bohemia, and the window-glass that led to his garden (the famous The Window of My Atelier series). He went on to photograph the crowded interior of his studio (the Labyrinths series).
His first show in the West was at George Eastman House in 1974. He published 16 books during his life, now affordable to only the richest collectors.
He became known as the "Poet of Prague". Sudek never married, and was always known as a shy and retiring person - he never appeared at the openings of his own exhibitions, and few people appear in his photographs. Despite the privations of the war and Communism, he kept a renowned record collection of classical music.
Life2
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Jeho díla prošla přísnými světovými fotografickými salóny a v tehdejším tvrdém konkurenčním boji se zařadila mezi ty úspěšné.Fotografie jednoho z našich nejvýznamnějších fotografů období mezi první a druhou světovou válkou "Ukazuje se, že fotografie z této etapy jsou mnohem důležitější, než jsme si doteď mysleli. Nejen pozdní, ale také ranná tvorba Josefa Sudka je cennou součástí světového umění," podtrhuje význam fotografova díla kurátor výstavy Antonín Dufek. Repro fotografie Josef Sudek.
Ve své práci se zaměřil na tehdejší žánr, místopisné fotografie, konstruované zátiší ale také na téma spojená s reklamou. Většina jeho děl patří k špičkovým dílům před rokem 1930 a svoji kvalitu a uznání odborné i laické veřejnosti si uchovává dodnes. "Jsou umělci, jejichž dílo je možno vystavovat pořád. V různých variantách, průřezech a seskupeních, podle námětů či technik. A jsou umělci, kteří nejen neomrzí,
Rodák z Kolína fotografoval již před první světovou válku. Při boji na italské frontě přišel o pravou ruku. Tato skutečnost jej však v jeho kariéře neomezila a po návratu z války se stal aktivním fotografem. Vyučil se na Státní fotografické škole v Praze. Založil spolek, který se nesmiřoval s tradičním pojetím fotografie. Později se ve své tvorbě se sám odklonil od tehdejšího evropského fotografického stylu.
Dílu Josefa Sudka se galerie soustavně věnuje už od roku 1969 a v současné době vlastní přes šest set jeho fotografií. Většinu fotografií získala Moravská galerie darem od sestry fotografa Boženy Sudkové. http://brnensky.denik.cz/kultura/mix/vystava_josef_sudek061215.html
Reklamní a propagační fotografie vytvářel Josef Sudek ve 20. – 30. letech 20. století. V domácím kontextu je považován za průkopníka tohoto oboru s jedinečným autorským rukopisem.
Základy profesionality Josef Sudek (1896 Kolín nad Labem – 1976 Praha) získal během studia na pražské Státní grafické škole v letech 1922 – 1924, roku 1927 si pronajal vlastní ateliér. Po několika letech tápání roku 1930 Sudek získal nového společníka Adolfa Hofmanna (1896 – 1975), který mu určitou dobu pomáhal vést samostatný podnik. V komerční korespondenci té doby nacházíme jméno firmy Sudek a Hofmann, z ulice měla vývěsní štít UMĚLECKÁ FOTOGRAFIE – Josef Sudek. V těžké době hospodářské krize mělo přátelství osudový význam, Sudek nejen přežil, ale etabloval se i jako vyhledávaný specialista. Mnohem později, roku 1959, mu tentýž přítel Hofmann pomohl získat nový byt a pracovnu na hradčanském Úvoze 24, kde dnes sídlí Galerie Josefa Sudka.
Už roku 1926 Sudek navázal první pracovní kontakty s nakladatelstvím Družstevní práce (dále DP). Hlavní zájem soustředil na přípravu materiálů pro její propagační časopisy: Panoramu DP, Žijeme, Jak žijeme a Magazín DP, v němž byl Sudek v letech 1934-36 členem redakční rady. Časopis Žijeme byl vydáván Svazem Československého Díla společně s DP a „…věnován kvalitní práci, bytové kultuře a vůbec modernímu životu. Jeho účelem je sloužit propagaci vskutku moderních snah v praktickém životě.“ Hlavním partnerem v DP byl Sudkovi její umělecký šéf Ladislav Sutnar. V roce 1928 Sudek poprvé fotografoval v michelské plynárně, později můžeme dokladovat spolupráci s mnoha dalšími firmami:Továrnou na čokoládu Orion, tiskárnou Lidových novin, dělnickým spolkem Včela, Železárnami a smaltovnami Otty Hofmanna v Hořovicích, Microphonou, firmou GEC, Ultraphonem, v druhé polovině 30. let pak s podniky strojírenské (katalog modelu Tatra 77) a textilní výroby. Zvláštní kapitolu v Sudkově pozůstalosti tvoří propagační snímky na Pilnáčkovo mýdlo, kosmetiku, ale i obuvnickou firmu Popper.
Josef Sudek se zabýval reklamou i organizačně, spolupracoval s řadou institucí a firem, které v 30. letech postupně prosazovaly účelnou a vkusnou obchodní propagaci.V prvé řadě to byly tradiční Pražské vzorkové veletrhy, Společnost pro účelnou reklamu ITRA a Reklamní poradna Ing. Slabého (Solara). Roku 1933 se Sudkův ateliér presentoval na pražské Výstavě moderní reklamy.
Dnešní komorní výstava s ukázkami nejrůznějších typů reklamní fotografie Josefa Sudka, uložených dnes ve sbírce Uměleckoprůmyslového musea v Praze, představuje poprvé i maketu propagačního kalendáře tiskové agentury Orbis na rok 1931. Soubor reklam doplňuje slavná fotografie Vzpomínka na Hofmanna z roku 1975 z autorova souboru Labyrinty, která je připomínkou přátelství obou mužů.
29. 4. – 1. 8. 2004, otevřeno středa – neděle 11 – 19, Galerie Josefa Sudka, Úvoz 24, Praha 1 Náhledy http://www.czechdesign.cz/index.php?status=c&clanek=453&lang=1
Známý neznámý Josef Sudek
Místo Josefa Sudka v dějinách fotografie je nezpochybnitelné. Jeho dílo zhodnocuje tradici české kultury a zároveň spoluvytváří jeho charakter. Jedinečný soubor fotografií špičkové kvality pochází z doby před rokem 1930, než se Sudek naplno přiklonil k nové věcnosti.
Josef Sudek byl zakládajícím členem spolků, které se nesmiřovaly s tradičním pojetím fotografie, jako například Fotoklubu Praha a České fotografické společnosti. Jako fotograf byl Sudek oceňován od začátku 20. let ve své vlasti i na mezinárodních fotografických salonech. Zhruba od roku 1940 se Josef Sudek začal odchylovat od hlavního proudu moderní fotografie jak stylově, tak technicky. V sedmdesátých letech začal být uznáván především v USA, jako jeden z nejvýznamnějších představitelů subjektivizace moderní fotografie. V současné době, v souvislosti s postmodernismem na straně jedné a ekologickým myšlením na straně druhé, probíhá první reaktualizace jeho tvorby.
http://www.kult.cz/divadlo-kino-hudba/detail/162346
Life
1896 - Born March 17 in Kolin 1908 -12yrs. old begins studying at the Royal Bohemian Trade School in Kutna Hora.
1911- Moves to Prague to work as a bookbinder's apprentice. Begins taking photos.
1915-16 - Fought in and photographed the WW1 on the Italian front. Lost his right arm.
1917 - Due to his disability he is unable to continue bookbinding. He concentrates more on photography . 1920-21 - Becomes member of Prague Society of Amateur Photographers . 1922-24 - Studies photography at Prague Graphic Arts School.
1922-27 - Photographs veterans at Invalidovna hospital.
1924 - Founding member of the Prague photographic society.
1926 - Travels to Italy
1927 - Settles in his garden studio
1928 - Photographs the reconstruction of St. Vitus Cathedral and issues his first album of 10 original photos for the 10th anniversary of Czechoslovakia's existence.
1927-1936 - Works for Druzstevni Prace. Specializing in portraits, ads, reportage.
1932 - First exhibition in Prague
1940 - Stops enlarging negatives and focuses on contact prints.
1958 - Moves to new studio in Uvoz.
1961- Receives the Title-Artist of Merit. He was the first photographer so honored by the Czech government.
1966 - Awarded the Order of Work by Czech government.
1976 - Died on September 15th in Prague. http://www.josefsudek.net/index.php?akc=about_sudek
Josef Sudek
by Charles Sawyer
[Originally published in Creative Camera, April 1980, Number 190] Go straight to photos of Sudek by the author
Prologue. Josef Sudek was born in 1896 in Kolin on the Labe in Bohemia. As a boy he learned the trade of bookbinding. He was drafted into the Hungarian Army in 1915 and served on the Italian Front until he was wounded in the right arm. Infection set in and eventually surgeons removed his arm at the shoulder. During his convalescence in an Army Hospital, he began photographing his fellow inmates. After his discharge, Sudek studied photography for two years in a school for graphic art in Prague. Between a disability pension and intermitment work as a commercial photographer, Sudek made a living. In 1933, he held his first one-man show in the Krasnajizba salon. Since 1947, he has published eight books. In the early 1950's, Sudek acquired an 1894 Kodak Panorama camera whose spring-drive sweeping lens makes a negative 10 cm x 30 cm. He employed this exotic format to make a stunning series of cityscapes of Prague, published in 1959.
Sudek's work first appeared in America in 1974 when the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, gave him a retrospective exhibition. The same year Light Gallery in New York City showed an exhibition of his photographs. On his 80th birthday in April, 1976, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague inaugurated a comprehensive retrospective exhibition of Sudek's work which later appeared at the Photographer's Gallery, London.
In spite of his disability, Sudek always used large format cameras and from the 1940's on he made only contact prints. He worked without assistants in the open air in city and countryside. His hunched figure supporting a huge wooden tripod was a familiar sight in Prague. Although he never married and was rather shy, he was not a recluse and was renowned for his weekly soirees for listening to classical music from his vast record collection. Sudek died quietly and without suffering or illness in mid-September 1976 in Prague.
Sudek, The Man And His Work. Josef Sudek was born in 1896 in the industrial town of Kolin on the River Labe in Bohemia. Czechoslavakia then existed only in the imagination of a few visionary artists, particularly writers, and of some political activists. Emperor Franz Josef reigned on the Hapsburg throne and Bohemia was a Kingdom in the Austro- Hungarian Empire. Josef's father was a house painter and he apprenticed his son to a bookbinder; a fellow worker introduced the young man to photography. In 1915 he was drafted and assigned to a unit on the Italian front. After slightly less than a year in the line, he was wounded in the right arm. The wound was not serious, but gangrene set in; a long struggle ensued and f inally Sudek's arm was removed at the shoulder. For three years, he was a patient in a veteran's hospital; it was there, during his recuperation, that he first began photographing in earnest.
The years from his leaving the veteran's hospital around 1920 until 1926 were restless years for Sudek. He could not take up his trade of bookbinding. He was offered an office job but turned it down. After settling in Prague, he cast about for a new lot. He considered taking up the life of a small merchant but had no taste for it. To keep body and soul together, he took photographs for small commissions. He joined the Amateur Photography Club and struck up a friendship with Jaromir Funke, a well-educated, vocal, young photographer with advanced aesthetic theories concerning photography. In 1922, Sudek enrolled in the School of Graphic Arts in Prague and received an old-school, formal education in photography. Two main subjects occupied his attention with his camera: his former fellow-patients, the invalids in the veteran's hospital, and the reconstruction of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague then in progress. Occasionally he returned to his native Kolin to photograph the leisure life in the parks of the city. Still, he was unsettled, apparently not yet reconciled to his loss. And he was contentious. Together with his friend Funke, he was expelled from the Photography Club for his impatient opposition to those who stood firmly by the then entrenched techniques of painterly affectations. The two upstarts gathered other like-minded photographers and formed the avant-garde Czech Photographic Society in 1924, devoted to the integrity ot the negative and freedom from the painters' tradition. Although Funke was the same age as Sudek, he had already studied law, medicine and philosophy. Sudek admired his superior education and intellectual capacities, and their discussions often led to ambitious projects.
In 1926, Sudek suffered a life crisis brought on when he accepted an invitation from his friends in the Czech Philharmonic to join them on tour initaly.His description of the odyssey is reproduced by Bullaty (page 27). It runs as follows:
"When the musicians ot the Czech Philharmonic told me: 'Josef come with us, we are going to Italy to play music,' I told myself, 'fool that you are, you were there and you did not enjoy that beautiful country when you served as a soldier for the Emperor's Army.' And so went with them on this unusual excursion. In Milan, we had a lot of applause and acclaim and we travelled down the Italian boot untill we came to that place — I had to disappear in the middle of the concert; in the dark I got lost, but I had to search. Far outside the city toward dawn, in the fields bathed by the morning dew, finally I found the place. But my arm wasn't there - only the poor peasant farmhouse was still standing in its place. They had bought me into it that day when I was shot in the right arm. They could never put it together again, and for years I was going from hospital to hospital, and had to give up my bookbinding trade. The Philharmonic people apparently even made the police look for me but I somehow could not get myself to return from this country. I turned up in Prague some two months later. They didn't reproach me, but from that time on, I never went anywhere, anymore and I never will. What would I be looking for when I didn't find what I wanted to find?"
From Sudek's sketchy account of his crisis in 1926, we get a picture of a restless and troubled man accepting a casual invitation that leads him near the very spot where years before his hope for a normal life had been shattered. Leaving his friends, in mid-concert he wanders somnabulent until near dawn he comes to the exact place where, nearly ten years before, his life was forever changed. Unable to abandon hope of recovering his lost arm, he stays two months in that place, cut off from his friends and his world in Prague. Finally, his mourning complete, reconciled, but permanently estranged, he returns to Prague, where he immerses himself in his art.
The interpretation of Sudek's life offered in the previous paragraph seems to me reflected in his photography and borne out in his life style. His photos from 1920 until the year of his crisis are markedly different, both in style and content, from those following. In the series from the veteran's hospital taken in the early 1920's, his former fellow-invalids are seen as ghostly silhouettes shrouded in clouds of light - lost souls suspended in Limbo. In the photos of Sunday pleasure-seekers in his native Kolin from the same period, the people are seen from 6 distance, through soft focus, in social clusters, usually with their backs to the camera, suggesting the closure of the ordinary social world to outsiders. His extended study of the reconstruction of St. Vitus begun in 1924, two years before his crisis, and completed in 1928, with the publication of his first book, can all too easily be taken as a metaphor for his personal struggle to reconstruct his own life.
After 1926, Sudek began to find his own personal style and come into his full powers as an artist. Gone is the haze of soft focus, and gone too, are the people - even most of his cityscapes show deserted streets. He turned his attention to the city of Prague with devotion and dedication that are rare even among the most committed artists. He succeeded to capture both the grandeur and the unpretentiousness of that lovely city. Yet, lovely as it still looks, through his lens it is empty. As if to compensate for the absence of the human factor in its customary place, Sudek personified the inanimate. The woods of Bohemia and Moravia projected on his view-screen were inhabitated by "sleeping giants", as he called them, huge dead trees that watched over the landscape like statues out of Easter Island. In his playful moods, Sudek toyed with masks and statuary heads, showing them as lovers, as grotesqueries, or even as gods. He found intimacy hard to achieve - perhaps because it was painful - not just in his interpersonal life but even under his viewing cloth. Its substitute came easily with inanimate objects. "I love the life of objects," he told one interviewer. "When the children go to bed, the objects come to life. I like to tell stories about the life of inanimate objects." He devoted endless hours to photographing special objects in various settings, particularly objects given to him by friends. He often called these photos "remembrances" of this or that person. It appears as if his personal rapport with the inanimate things he photographed so lovingly began as an alternative to real intimacy with other persons and evolved into a means to bridge the gap that stood between him and the others.
As he came to his artistic maturity, immersion in work and devotion to a high standard of craftsmanship became the dominant motifs of Sudek's life. In 1940, he saw a 30 x 40 cm photograph of a statue from Chartres, which, he recognized, was not an enlargement but one made by the contact process. The print so impressed him for its rendering of the stone material that he vowed thereafter always to make contact prints. He said it was less the fineness of details he craved in contact prints, than their tonal variation. From then on he lugged view cameras as large as the 30 x 40 cm format (roughly 12 x 16 inches) around the steep streets of the Hradcany and Mala Strana sections of Prague, working with one hand, cradling the camera in his lap to make adjustments, using his teeth when his hand was insufficient.
No photographer, save possibly Atget, was so devoted to the task of portraying a city, and with such stunning results, as Sudek. He couldn't have had a better subject than Prague; not even Atget was so lucky with Paris. Prague is, to many, the jewel of Europe. In the days when Europe from Paris to St. Petersburg was still one cultural continuum, Prague was considered the heart of the continent. The city was Mozart's second home after Vienna (the Czechs seemed to him to have appreciated him more than his fellow Viennese), and it also was Kafka's native city. Somehow the two blend, as do the massive buildings of the city of Gothic, Rennaissance, and Baroque architecture. (The modern buildings, especially housing estates, are mercifully placed on the outskirts of the city). Two features dominate the city: Charles Bridge, the footbridge spanning the Vltava, lined with statues depicting the history of Christianity and the Czechs, and Hradcany Castle, a sprawling fortress enclosing several courtyards, the traditional residence of Czech kings, as well as St. Vitus Cathedral. Charles Bridge dates from the 14th century and Hradcany's earliest construction dates from the 12th century. The castle, which is on the crest of a steep ridge rising from the west bank of the Vltava, dominates the profile of the city seen from the east bank of the river. In all, Sudek compiled seven books of Prague photographs. He left the streets only toward the very end, when old age added to his handicap and made moving around the city with his camera a titanic struggle. In the Prologue to her book (p. 14), Sonja Bultaty tells an anecdote about helping Sudek photograph Prague. It portrays the special relationship between him and the city.
I remember one time, in one of the Romanesque halls, deep below the spires of the cathedral [St. Vitus] - it was dark as in catacombs - with just a small window below street level inside the massive medieval walls. We setup the tripod and camera and then sat down on the floor and talked. Suddenly Sudek was up like lightening. A ray of sun had entered the darkness and both of us were waving cloths to raise mountains of dust 'to see the light,' as Sudek said. Obviously he had known that the sun would reach here perhaps two or three times a year and he was waiting for it.
His workman-like attitude applied not only to the purely technical side of things but to the aesthetics of his camera work as well. Nowhere does this show so clearly as in his panoramic photos. The unusual format with its extreme proportions of 1 x 3 and the special distortions caused by the sweeping lens are extremely demanding, like the constraints of a sonnet. Yet like any set of artistic constraints, the peculiar requirements of the panoramic photo offer opportunities not found elsewhere. Sudek never tired of exploring the possibilities of the photographic sonnets he could make with his antique mechanism whose shutter speeds were marked simply "fast" and "slow". With it he gave us a geodesic feeling for the country-side which far surpasses anything we get from isolated views, and in Prague itself he showed how the River Vltava is an integral part of the city and how the labyrinthian quality of the city is offset by its broad open spaces. He was never short of resourceful ways of using the panoramic format. Before the horizontal panorama had yieided all its secrets, Sudek turned the camera on its side and gave us vertical panoramas!
The systematic approach, and the dogged aesthetic experimentation of Sudek are akin to the working habits of Cezanne. But these alone are insufficient to make great art or even good art. On the contrary, if these are all one sees in a work, then the cumulative burdern of so much plain labor would be unbearable. Sudek's devotion to work may have integrated his shattered life but it could not have offered him the spiritual redemption he was seeking; only his aesthetic quest could bring this. It is the struggle for spiritual redemption through his aesthectic quest that gives Sudek's best photographs their true power. Two qualities characterize his best work: a rich diversity of light values in the low end of the tonal scale, and the representation of light as a substance occupying its own space. The former, the diversity of light values, requires very delicate treatment of the materials, especially the negative, but also the paper (Sudek used silver halide papers in the main). The latter, the portrayal of light as substance, is a more original trait then his tonal palette, which one sees in occasional prints of other photographers. Flaubert once expressed an ambition to write a book which would have no subject, "a book dependent on nothing external ... held together by the strength of its style." Photographers have sometimes expressed parallel aspirations to make light itself the subject of their photographs, leaving the banal, material world behind. Both ideals are, of course, unobtainable, but nonetheless they may be worth pursuing. (Artists, in their pursuit of the unobtainable, are not so likely to be called pathological as others,of us, though recent developments in ihe philosophy of science tend to view the scientist's quest for truth as equally quixotic). Sudek has come closer than any other photographer to catching this illusive goal. His devices for this effect are simple and highly poetic: the dust he raised in a frenzy when the light was just right, a gossamer curtain draped over a chair back, the mist from a garden sprinkler, even the ambient moisture in the atmosphere when the air is near dew point. The eye is usually accustomed to seeing not light but the surfaces it defines; when light is reflected from amorphous materials, however, perception of materiality shifts to light itself. Sudek looked for such materials everywhere. And then he usually balanced the ethereal luminescence with the contra-bass of his deep shadow tonalities. The effect is enchanting, and strongly conveys the human element which is the true content of his photographs. For, throughout all his photography, there is one dominant mood, one consistent viewpoint, and one overriding philosophy. The mood is melancholy and the point of view is romanticism. And overriding all this is a philosphic detachment, an attitude he shares with Spinoza. The attitude of detachment that characterizes Sudek's art accounts for both its strength and weakness: the strength which lies in the ideal of utter tranquility and the weakness which is found in the paucity of human intimacy, Some commentators find Sudek's photos mysterious but I think this is a mistake: the air of mystery vanishes once we see in Sudek's photography a person's private salvation from despair.
Sudek, A Final Glimpse
All photos of Josef Sudek were taken by Charles Sawyer. Copyright Charles Sawyer, 2000. Images and text may not be reproduced without permission from Charles Sawyer.
In August 1976, a large Sudek retrospective opened in Roudnice, not far from Prague in the converted stable at a palatial estate where generations of Czech nobility had lived until the founding of the Republic in 1918. Sudek never came to his own openings; he was much too shy to endure being the centre of so much attention. Yet, for the Roudnice opening he made an exception since he wanted to see how the photos were hung and to go on another day would require that some friend make a special trip to take him there. So he accepted a ride with Anna Farova, who was on the programme to make some opening remarks.
After surveying his exhibition and expressing approval, Sudek retired to the curator's second floor office for a glass of wine.
Later when the gallery had filled with celebrants, the curator showed Sudek through a door from his office onto a balcony overlooking the gallery space below. The curator joined the crowd on the gallery floor. A small chamber ensemble played some light classical music, the curator said some words of greeting, and Anna gave a short talk. Respecting his wishes neither Anna nor the curator called attention to the artist, whose head was barely visible over the balustrade at the far end of the room. When the proceedings concluded, Sudek's admirers slowly filtered out of the gallery, lingering over individual photographs, apparently unaware that Sudek had been watching the festivity from above.
On the return trip to Prague in Anna's tiny sedan, I was wedged in beside Dr. Peter Helbich, Sudek's close friend in later life. He told me how he had met Sudek photographing in the woods of Moravia. They struck up a friendship and Sudek began tutoring the ear-and-throat specialist, thirty-years his junior, in his avid avocation of photography. Sudek called him "student" and the doctor called him "chief". A close relationship evolved between the unlikely pair. Helbich gave me his own private assessment of the connection between Sudek's life and his work. Ever since he lost his arm, Helbich explained, Sudek has felt estranged from the rest of humanity, and his photography is a means to bridge the gap. "It is the reason for the melancholy in his photographs", said Helbich. "Sometimes I think if he had not lost his arm, he would not have become the great artist he is." When we dropped Sudek in Prague that evening after dark, I noticed how very crooked his frame was as he passed under a street light, shuffling toward his studio a few blocks from Hrdcany Castle. A month later while Dr. Helbich was visiting him in his cluttered digs, Sudek was stricken with a heart attack and died enroute to the hospital, He was 80.
Sudek, The Book. Sonja Bullaty was a young woman, just liberated from a Nazi concentration carnp, her head wrapped in a kerchief to hide her shaven pate, when she answered an ad in a Prague newspaper calling for a darkroom assistant. The photographer who placed the ad was Sudek and for the next year she struggled to keep pace with her dynamic boss, much her senior and her unwitting mentor. She was still bewildered by the trauma of the War but she knew she wanted to be a photographer. She trekked the city with him, washed his print trays, and listened to his chatter. But for her the city was haunted. Too often she saw familiar forms at a distance and rushed to catch lost friends or relatives only to meet total strangers up close. It was too much to bear and she left for the United States, where she made a succesful career as a photographer, giving New York and the Vermont countryside her loving attention after the style of Sudek's devotion to Prague and Moravia.
Over a thirty year period, Sudek sent her selections of his prints: more than 300 all told. The present volume consists of 79 Sudek photographs drawn from her collection and from a similar American collection owned by Sudek's friend and contemporary, the former secretary of the Artists' Association in Prague, Dr. Brumlik. The selection is diverse and representative, including some well known classics and many images previously unpublished in the West. The sheet fed gravure printing is up to the extremely high demands of Sudek's unusual, subtle grey-palette. The photographs are accompanied by an enlightening, well-informed, critical account of Sudek's work by Anna Farova, Sonja Bullaty's own "Remembrances of Sudek", a collection of comments of Sudek on Sudek, called "A Self Portrait", and an extremely helpful bibliography of books and articles on and by the artist. The volume closes with a short series of Bullaty's own photographs of Sudek. The last and next to last pages contain a poignant farewell to the artist which must be seen to be enjoyed. There is one thing missing from the- Bullaty volume which is not to be called a fault, namely the great depth to which Sudek could penetrate a single subject with a protracted series of photos. Alas, the depth of the Sudek ouevre is much too great to be portrayed in a short volume. By the time of his death, his output in Czechoslovakia totalled 16 books and monographs. Take his Praha Panoramaticka (Prague Panoramas), one of the most sought after books in the antiquarian shops in Europe: it contains 284 panoramic photos of the city and the surrounding countryside. To grasp Sudek's achievement with this unusual format one must see many more than the four lovely panoramas included in the Bullaty volume. Then there is the Janacek book. Music was a passionate concern of Sudek throughout life and among the composers he admired was the Czech composer Leos Janacek (1854-1928). For years Sudek made a habit of summertime journeys to Janacek's native Hukvaldy in Moravia where he tried to capture both the special beauty of the area and the character of the composer through photographs of the countryside, the town and the composer's home. [Hukvaldy, incidentally, is located near Pribor, birthplace of Sigmund Freud]. A selection of over two hundred of these photographs appeared in 1971 in a book titled - Janacek/Hukvaldy published by Supraphon, the state monopoly for music publishing. Only one of these photos has made it into the Bullaty book, To fault Bullaty, or her publisher, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., for not publishing a larger book showing Sudek's depth of penetration in individual subjects, would be inappropriate. Such a large book would be priced beyond the reach of the wide public here in the West that has waited ten years for a proper introduction to Sudek's work, and thus it would be self- defeating. This introductory volume is wisely designed to show Sudek's great scope, and if it somewhat neglects his depth, it only makes our appetites for more and deeper Sudek books all the sharper. One can hope that the thousands and thousands of negatives and prints Sudek left behind in the labyrinths of his atelier will be preserved and made available to us one day after we have digested this beautiful book. [Back to top.] http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sawyer/Sudek.htm
JOSEF SUDEK
by Elenore Welles
“Cemetary and Bicycle”, vintage gelatin silver print, 2 1/2 x 5 1/2”, date unknown.
“Prague Castle Courtyard”, vintage gelatin silver print, 5 1/2 x 3 1/2”, date unknown.
“On the Window of My Studio", vintage gelatin sil- ver print, 4 1/2 x 6”, 1956.
“Kolin Island”, vintage gelatin silver print, 11 3/4 x 9 1/2”, date unknown.
(Peter Fetterman Gallery, Santa Monica) Czechoslovakian photographer Josef Sudek’s style of enigmatic reality correlated more to Surrealist and Magic Realist paintings than to the popular photographic styles of his time. Throughout his life, Sudek remained faithful to his own stylistic and emotional proclivities, particularly in his prescient use of blurred images and in his unique expressions of light and shadow. Like Eugene Atget, his counterpart in France, he delved into the essence of his environment. However, whereas Atget reached for the sociological realities of the city, Sudek’s mysterious photographs derived from a more subjective place.
Sudek was born in 1896 and died in 1976. He lost his right arm during World War I—an event that makes his technical feats all the more noteworthy. He was, for the most part, a loner, devoted to introspection and explorations of his soul. He believed that symbolic form equates with inner emotions, a philosophy shared by many painters of his era.
In his public explorations, he concentrated on photographing historic buildings, public squares and churches such as St. Vitus’ Cathedral. There he focused on architectural details, shooting from a variety of angles and waiting for the moment when the light was exactly right. The result was a series of distinctive perspectives.
He was attracted also to airy spaces and changing light in nature, a sensibility that ties him to the Impressionists. In his Kolin Island series, atmospheric photographs of people in the countryside capture specific moments in time and strata of society as well. Blurred figures dissolve in an atmospheric haze, frozen in time. Rays of sunlight and deep shadows create a dreamlike mood, as though the observer has wandered into a sequence of a surreal Felini movie. Sudek’s lyrical transformations of landscapes often came about from exhaustive and complicated preparations. Always waiting for just the right moment, each object, person or foliage is caught within it’s own atmosphere.
In his Garden series, haunting images stem from ill-defined values of tonal gradations that move from dark grays to blacks. Gnarled and lacy structures of trees and thickly growing plants are either bathed in radiating light or darkly silhouetted.
As a result of Sudek’s reclusive tendencies, a large portion of his photographs were shot from the vantage point of his studio window in Prague. The window acts as a reflective backdrop, framing artfully arranged objects such as onions, pebbles or flowers. He was particularly fond of the way glass objects refracted light in exciting ways. Sudek liked to view these as homages to the carefully arranged still-lifes of Chardin and old Dutch masters. His later, more modernist still-lifes were beautiful studies of form, light and shadow, but they lacked the soul of these earlier ones.
He often shot the window through a curtain of dew, ice or rain drops, a distorting barrier between internal and external worlds. In The Window of My Studio, for example, a barely distinguishable figure is seen through a dusky veil of rainy condensation. The dark indeterminacy creates a barrier between the observer and the observed. This implied sense of mystery is deliberate, a way to kindle the imagination of the viewer.
Sudek’s excursions into the the realm of imagination reflects the Czech Poetism movement of the 1920s. However, he always remained true to his own inner visions and his desire to portray a world that was created from within himself. His remoteness, his need to remain close to nature, his spirituality and his attention to detail are all reflected in the photographs on view here. Most evident is his inimitable patience. His cycles of themes such as still-lifes and landscapes often took as long as ten years to complete. http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1999/Articles1099/JSudekA.html
Directory of Notable Photographers
About.com Josef Sudek (1896-1976)
Josef Sudek was a keen amateur photographer when he was called up to fight for his country, Czechoslovakia, in the First World War. He continued to photograph during his military service. The loss of an arm meant he could not return to his former trade of bookbinding, so he decided to become a photographer.
Because of his war injury he was able to get a free scholarhip for a photography course; here he was taught by one of the best known older Czech photographers who introduced him to pictorialism, but, along with the other leading young photographers he quicly became absorbed in a modernist approach.
Sudek soon became sucessful commercially and also one of the leaders in Czech artistic circles. The Nazi invasion of 1939 brought much of the cultural life of Prague to a halt; forced in on himself, Sudek brooded over his work and became captivated by the quality obtainable from contact prints - and from this time on hardly ever enlarged a negative. He also began a great deal of experimentation with printing papers and effects, creating a very different style of printing to that advance in America by 'straight photographers' such as Ansel Adams. Sudek's work was often dark and moody; he was not afraid to make use of some very limited tonalities.
After the war, Sudek gained an assistant, Sonja Bullaty, teaching her photography. It was Bullaty who, when she emigrated to America, took Sudek's work and made it known outside of the Iron Curtain. Sudek was an individualist whose work did not fit in well with the communist authorities and their Soviet masters, but the strong cultural tradition in the country meant there were enough people in power who appreciated his work to protect him, and he was even honoured by the state in his old age. http://photography.about.com/library/dop/bldop_jsudek.htm
oseph Sudek (1896-1976) - Poet of Prague Part 1: Early years
More of this Feature
• Part 2: War and After
Related Resources
• World Photo Guide • Notable Photographers • Notable Photographers - Josef Sudek
Elsewhere on the Web
• Josef Sudek • Fotografie da Prag • Panoramic Photography
Joseph Sudek trained as a bookbinder (his younger sister went into photography) but had a become a keen amateur photographer before being called into military service in the First World War in 1915. He produced several albums of pictures - including landscapes showing splintered trees and other war damage - during his almost three years of war service, which ended when he was wounded by artillery fire from his own side during an attack, resulting in the loss of his right arm.
While staying in a veteran's hostel, he continued to walk and photograph the countryside, and through this he was introduced to another photographer of the same age, Jaromir Funke (1896-1945), who was to become a close friend. As Sudek could no longer bind books, he decided to retrain as a photographer, managing to get a free scholarship to the State School of Graphic Arts where he studied with Karel Novak. Novak introduced his students to the work of Edward Weston, but it was the pictures of Clarence White, with his use of a soft-focus lens to produce diffused highlights and a mood of romanticism that were a more immediate influence on his early work. However, along with Funke and the other young Czech modernists with whom he founded the Czech Photographic Society in 1924, Sudek was soon to renounce such 'artistic' effects, becoming a part of the 'new wave' of modern photography in Europe.
The fascination with light and mood was however to permeate his lifetime's work, with brilliant shafts of sunlight penetrating the dusty gloom of St Vitus Cathedral (his use of light in these interiors reminiscent of the great master of the platinum print, Frederick Evans). A later series of work concentrated on views through the windows of his studio, the glass misted up by condensation or frost, giving a view to a magic world outside through this glowing barrier. His simple still life work, often using fine glassware and ceramics produced by other members of the flourishing Prague artists' cooperative as well as simple elements such as water, bread and eggs, also shows superb use of natural lighting.
Commercially, Sudek was a great success, working as house photographer for the influential magazine produced by the Prague artists, as well as in advertising and other projects. He was also exhibiting his personal work both in Czechoslovakia and internationally, and was a leading figure in the Czech cultural scene. http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011000a.htm
Joseph Sudek (1896-1976) - Poet of Prague
Part 2: The War and After
More of this Feature
• Part 1: Early years
Related Resources
• World Photo Guide • Notable Photographers • Notable Photographers - Josef Sudek
Elsewhere on the Web
• Josef Sudek • Fotografie da Prag • Panoramic Photography
The War and After
The Nazi invasion in 1939 led Sudek to withdraw very much into himself. Coming across an old photograph, he was gripped by the quality which it had because it was a contact print. He started intensive experiments in printmaking which was to be an important aspect of this work from this time on, concentrating on the use of very dark (and often low contrast) images, sometimes on toned paper and at times using non-silver processes. After this date, almost his entire work - commercial and personal - was contact printed, from negatives on a wide range of mainly elderly cameras.
Sudek's pictures often play on the lower tones of the photographic scale, full of mystery and darkness. He was not afraid to produce prints with a very limited tonal scale. His small, unorthodox and intensely personal pictures were often dismissed by photographic critics attuned as they were to the kind of full-scale print we associate with the work of Ansel Adams and the American 'straight photography' tradition. His work has an earthy and elemental quality; it is intense and dramatic, full of emotion. It reflects a preoccupation which has a uniquely Central European origin, and which was also the seed bed for Freud and Kafka.
Although his first panoramic picture was made during his was service around 1916, it was around 1950 that he started to work seriously in this area, mainly with an 1899 Kodak Panoram panoramic camera, which produced prints that were 10 cm by 30 cm (about 4" x 12"). Perhaps his finest book, Panoramas of Prague, (1959) contained almost 300 panoramas from Prague and the surrounding area. Like most of his books it was published only in his native country.
Sudek's individualism did not fit in with the new post-war Czech Socialist Republic, but fortunately the strong artistic tradition of the country meant that there were many mavericks in the establishment who supported his work, and it continued to be published. Finally he was to become the first photographer to be honoured by the Republic with the title of 'Artist of Merit' and in his 70th year, his life's work was recognized by the 'Order of Labour'. He died, still keen to do more work, at the age of 80 in 1976.
At the end of the war, Sudek had been joined in his studio by a young Czech Jew who had survived the Nazi concentration camps and wanted to become a photographer. Sonja Bullaty kept in touch with her old master after she had emigrated to the USA, making a number of visits, and she built up a collection of his prints which were exhibited in the US. The first monograph of his work in the West was produced by Bullaty two years after his death, and contained an introduction by Anna Farova, Sudek's executrix and the great expert on his life; this excellent volume firmly established his reputation as one of the great photographers of the century.
WEB REFERENCES
SUDEK
Diverse Images -Afterimage A Sudek panorama, Rothmayer's Garden, 1948, in a fine mixed show - well worth looking at the others too!
History of Panoramic Photography Includes a fine Sudek panorama and some information on cameras.
Sudek, Josef Over 15 pictures by Sudek on a Czech site, linked to larger versions that are generally better reproduced; mainly landscape work.
Josef Sudek - Art Scene Cal Good review article by Elenore Welles of a Santa Monica, US show of his work with several illustrations
Josef Sudek: Fotografie da Prag Italian text for the 1999 exhibition at the Czech Center of Photography, Prague, with biography. Worth a visit - even if like me you don't read Italian - for the pictures.
Sudek, Josef - Photocollect A short biography. Pictures currently on this site include his Evening on Charles Bridge, Forest's Ferny Floor and Small Twisted Tree
Josef Sudek - Salander-O'Reilly Brief chronology and one picture from the galleries. OTHER PHOTOGRAPHERS
Frederick Henry Evans (1853-1943) Lincoln Cathedral, Stairway to South West Turret, c1898 - the rest of this fine site from the RPS is also worth exploring.
Jaromir Funke (1896-1945) Portfolio IV - 5 excellent pictures at Deborah Bell Gallery from a leading Czech photographer and friend of Sudek. Funke's work was generally more abstract and modernist.
Clarence H White(1871-1925) About Photography Notable Photographers listing for White.
BOOKS
Josef Sudek: Monograph Sudek, Josef Edited by Anna Farova, this is a lengthy and authoritative study of Sudek and his work. Understandably not cheap. Currently out of print, you can search for secondhand copies through Barnes & Noble without obligation. Hardcover
Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague, Outward Journey, Aperture: Issue 117 Sudek, Josef First of two Aperture issues devoted to his work, this covers his work up to the Second World War. Essay by Anna Farova. This and issue 118 were also published in a single volume volume as Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague(out of print.) Hardcover
Josef Sudek: Pigment Prints Marin Peretz A new volume dealing with Sudek's work. Hardcover
See a full listing of other features from About Photography on the history, theory and applications of photography and on great photographers.
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http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa011000b.htm
Josef Sudek Czechian, 1896-1976
Website about the artist: no website
Introduction
Joseph Sudek trained as a bookbinder (his younger sister went into photography) but had a become a keen amateur photographer before being called into military service in the First World War in 1915. He produced several albums of pictures - including landscapes showing splintered trees and other war damage - during his almost three years of war service, which ended when he was wounded by artillery fire from his own side during an attack, resulting in the loss of his right arm.
While staying in a veteran's hostel, he continued to walk and photograph the countryside, and through this he was introduced to another photographer of the same age, Jaromir Funke (1896-1945), who was to become a close friend. As Sudek could no longer bind books, he decided to retrain as a photographer, managing to get a free scholarship to the State School of Graphic Arts where he studied with Karel Novak. Novak introduced his students to the work of Edward Weston, but it was the pictures of Clarence White, with his use of a soft-focus lens to produce diffused highlights and a mood of romanticism that were a more immediate influence on his early work. However, along with Funke and the other young Czech modernists with whom he founded the Czech Photographic Society in 1924, Sudek was soon to renounce such 'artistic' effects, becoming a part of the 'new wave' of modern photography in Europe.
The fascination with light and mood was however to permeate his lifetime's work, with brilliant shafts of sunlight penetrating the dusty gloom of St Vitus Cathedral (his use of light in these interiors reminiscent of the great master of the platinum print, Frederick Evans). A later series of work concentrated on views through the windows of his studio, the glass misted up by condensation or frost, giving a view to a magic world outside through this glowing barrier. His simple still life work, often using fine glassware and ceramics produced by other members of the flourishing Prague artists' cooperative as well as simple elements such as water, bread and eggs, also shows superb use of natural lighting.
Commercially, Sudek was a great success, working as house photographer for the influential magazine produced by the Prague artists, as well as in advertising and other projects. He was also exhibiting his personal work both in Czechoslovakia and internationally, and was a leading figure in the Czech cultural scene.
The Nazi invasion in 1939 led Sudek to withdraw very much into himself. Coming across an old photograph, he was gripped by the quality which it had because it was a contact print. He started intensive experiments in printmaking which was to be an important aspect of this work from this time on, concentrating on the use of very dark (and often low contrast) images, sometimes on toned paper and at times using non-silver processes. After this date, almost his entire work - commercial and personal - was contact printed, from negatives on a wide range of mainly elderly cameras.
Sudek's pictures often play on the lower tones of the photographic scale, full of mystery and darkness. He was not afraid to produce prints with a very limited tonal scale. His small, unorthodox and intensely personal pictures were often dismissed by photographic critics attuned as they were to the kind of full-scale print we associate with the work of Ansel Adams and the American 'straight photography' tradition. His work has an earthy and elemental quality; it is intense and dramatic, full of emotion. It reflects a preoccupation which has a uniquely Central European origin, and which was also the seed bed for Freud and Kafka.
Although his first panoramic picture was made during his was service around 1916, it was around 1950 that he started to work seriously in this area, mainly with an 1899 Kodak Panoram panoramic camera, which produced prints that were 10 cm by 30 cm (about 4" x 12"). Perhaps his finest book, Panoramas of Prague, (1959) contained almost 300 panoramas from Prague and the surrounding area. Like most of his books it was published only in his native country.
Sudek's individualism did not fit in with the new post-war Czech Socialist Republic, but fortunately the strong artistic tradition of the country meant that there were many mavericks in the establishment who supported his work, and it continued to be published. Finally he was to become the first photographer to be honoured by the Republic with the title of 'Artist of Merit' and in his 70th year, his life's work was recognized by the 'Order of Labour'. He died, still keen to do more work, at the age of 80 in 1976.
At the end of the war, Sudek had been joined in his studio by a young Czech Jew who had survived the Nazi concentration camps and wanted to become a photographer. Sonja Bullaty kept in touch with her old master after she had emigrated to the USA, making a number of visits, and she built up a collection of his prints which were exhibited in the US. The first monograph of his work in the West was produced by Bullaty two years after his death, and contained an introduction by Anna Farova, Sudek's executrix and the great expert on his life; this excellent volume firmly established his reputation as one of the great photographers of the century. http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/texte/sudek_text.html
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/publications/papers/journal3/acrobat_files/Lahoda_article.pdf (PDF)
Josef Sudek se narodil 17. března 1896 v Kolíně, zemřel 15. září 1976 v Praze. V raném věku ztratil otce. Učil se knihařem, fotografoval již před 1. světovou válkou. Roku 1915 narukoval a od roku 1916 bojoval na italské frontě, kde byl o rok později zraněn a přišel o pravou ruku. Po návratu do Prahy se stal aktivním fotografem - amatérem a v letech 1922-24 se na Státní grafické škole v Praze, u prof. Karla Nováka, vyučil fotografem. Byl zakládajícím členem spolků, které se nesmiřovaly s tradičním pojetím fotografie, jako například Fotoklubu Praha (1922-24) a České fotografické společnosti (od 1924). Roku 1927 získal v Praze ateliér, v němž žil a pracoval spolu se sestrou až do smrti, svoji živnost zaměřil kromě portrétu na žánry spjaté s moderním tiskem - reklamu, fotografie výtvarných děl, či místopisnou fotografii. V posledních desetiletích měl i svůj byt, který zobrazil ve svém díle. Josef Sudek byl též znalcem vážné hudby, kterou k němu chodila poslouchat řada přátel. Jako fotograf byl Sudek oceňován od začátku 20. let ve své vlasti i na mezinárodních fotografických salonech. Zhruba od roku 1940 se Josef Sudek začal odchylovat od hlavního proudu moderní fotografie jak stylově, tak technicky. V sedmdesátých letech začal být uznáván především v USA, jako jeden z nejvýznamnějších představitelů subjektivizace moderní fotografie. V současné době, v souvislosti s postmodernismem na straně jedné a ekologickým myšlením na straně druhé, probíhá první reaktualizace jeho tvorby. Sudkovo dílo zhodnocuje tradici české kultury a spoluvytváří jeho charakter. Centrální úloha světla v navození iluze splývání viděného s viděním zároveň představuje řešení jedné z možností, v nichž médium nachází samo sebe. Sudkovo místo v dějichách fotografie je nezpochybnitelné.
Přes 600 ks fotografií Josefa Sudka ve sbírce Moravské galerie v Brně bylo z velké části darováno umělcovou sestrou Boženou Sudkovou. http://www.moravska-galerie.cz/cs/vystavni-akce/josef-sudek-neznamy/
6.2. 2005 14:22
PRAHA - Výstava Smutná krajina připravená Správou Pražského hradu ve spolupráci s Moravskou galerií v Brně přibližuje dodnes nepříliš známý soubor, panoramatické krajinářské snímky z Litvínovska a Mostecka, pořízené Sudkem mezi léty 1957-1962. Malíř Bohdan Kopecký přivedl Josefa Sudka do severozápadních Čech v době zániku starého Mostu, jednoho z našich nejstarších a památkově bohatých měst. V sousedství se na bývalých skrývkách stavěl Most nový. Sudek sem ale přišel i ve zlomovém čase, kdy se teprve proměňoval rolnicko-hornický charakter krajiny, před masivní povrchovou těžbou následujících desetiletí, která přivodila zánik mnoha obcí a zcela proměnila ráz tohoto kraje.
V kontextu Sudkovy lyrické fotografické tvorby mají jeho krajiny z hnědouhelné pánve zvláštní pozici. Namísto tajemných intimních zahrádek "architekta" nebo "sochařky", skvostnosti pražských veřejných zahrad, historické velkoleposti pohledů na Prahu, bukolické noty Janáčkových Hukvald nebo divoké romantické krásy beskydského pralesa Mionší zde Sudek programově fotografoval zdevastovanou a převážně plochou otevřenou krajinu.
Jistě si byl vědom její pomíjivosti, vždyť na místech mnohých vesnic nacházel hluboké těžní jámy, cesta mezi Mostem a Teplicemi ze dne na den vedla jinudy a starobylý Most se ztrácel doslova před očima. Ale navzdory nepochybné potřebě "vydat svědectví" nebyl Sudek jen dokumentátor. Nalezl zde krajinu mlh, kouře a smogu, tedy rozptýleného měkkého světla, pro Sudka tak významného, krajinu, kde příroda prohrávala boj s městem, ale také se podivuhodně s civilizací snoubila v křehké dekadentní kráse.
V košatosti Sudkovy tvorby se u diváků těší přízni především lyričnost. Poněkud se proto zapomíná, že ve dvacátých letech byl také autorem industriálních snímků z holešovického přístavu, že o deset let později fotografoval na zakázku kolínskou elektrárnu od Jaroslava Frágnera, moderní architekturu Hradce Králové a Baťova Zlína, nebo že paralelně s Litvínovskem a Mosteckem vytvářel i panoramatické snímky pražské periferie. Jiná "krajinkářská" fotografie
Právě jejich prostřednictvím vyvstane nejlépe poetika Smutné krajiny, vnímatelná příhodně přes malířskou, literární i fotografickou tvorbu umělecké Skupiny 42. Můžeme zde sledovat svár lidského a přírodního, jak se poživačné, rozlézající město pomocí zvláštních "příměstských" útvarů a prapodivného estetična sloupů, ohrad, kůlen, garáží, skleníků a zahrádek zakusuje do okolní volné přírody.
Sudkovy Smutné krajiny nejsou ekologickými snímky, ale můžeme je takto - z pohledu ekologie - vnímat. Jím zachycená devastace dnes působí celkem poeticky a mile. Především když budeme tyto fotografie tolik zkoušené krajiny vstřebávat se znalostí hrozivě varovných, nepoetických, i když svým způsobem vznešeně krásných, panoramat z Černého trojúhelníku fotografa Josefa Koudelky nebo posmutnělé obžaloby dalšího dokumentaristy Ibry Ibrahimoviče. Sudek jen tuší důsledky: vznik desítek tepelných elektráren, chemických závodů, zničení rozsáhlého území, zpřetrhané vazby, tradice mnoha lidí, osmisetleté historie mnoha zaniklých vesnic včetně zatím posledních Libkovic.
Josef Sudek od počátku zamýšlel vydat z těchto panoramatických snímků knihu Severní krajina. Takové téma si ale příliš přízně nezískalo. Nakonec prodal v roce 1973 maketu knihy se sto dvaceti osmi na kartonech nalepenými fotografiemi Moravské galerii v Brně, která část z nich pod názvem Smutná krajina vydala nejdříve v roce 1998 v Mnichově a o rok později ve spolupráci s Galerií výtvarného umění v Litoměřicích také u nás. K nynější výstavě v Císařské konírně v Praze připravilo už druhé vydání téměř devadesáti snímků ve výběru historika fotografie Antonína Dufka nakladatelství Kant.
Zatímco v knize nám intimnost podélných kontaktů nevadí, na výstavě umocněny řazením do jediné "nekonečné" horizontální linie vydrží jednotvárné pochodování podél těchto poměrně drobných snímků jen opravdu náruživý milovník Sudkova díla. Zůstává také otázkou, zda nebrilantní, mnohdy temné a tonálně nerovnoměrné snímky, restaurátorsky sejmuté z kartónů původní makety, odrážejí definitivní autorský záměr, nebo jestli je Sudek pokládal pouze za pracovní verzi.
To ale nic nemění na tom, že se Smutné krajině Josefa Sudka konečně dostává důstojného veřejného předvedení. Připomeňme si, že právě v době, kdy ČEZ žádá o opětné prolomení limitů těžby, a ohrožuje tak další vesnice.
Josef Sudek: Smutná krajina / Sad landscape
http://www.novinky.cz/kultura/sudkova-industrialni-zahrada_49254_ihrdt.html
Dvě vzpomínky na Josefa Sudka
24.6.2004 - Jiří Zahradnický - Něco z historie
Kolem fotografa Josefa Sudka (1896–1976) se postupem doby vytvořila obrovská legenda. Jaký vlastně byl? Pravdivý obraz této osobnosti si můžeme skládat i z malých střípků – třeba z komorních výstav nebo vzpomínkových knih.
Josef Sudek a reklama
Většina z nás má Josefa Sudka zafixovaného jako rázovitého starého muže, putujícího s těžkým stativem a velkoformátovým deskovým přístrojem napříč Prahou. Byl však Sudek opravdu svérázný samorost, který opovrhoval konvencemi a společenskými normami? Nebo to byla jen záměrná mystifikace, která mu – jako svobodnému a tvůrčímu duchu – usnadňovala přežít v tzv. reálném socialismu?
Pokud bychom se však přenesli o několik desetiletí hlouběji do historie, do přelomu 20. a 30. let 20. století, spatřili bychom obraz zcela jiný: mladého ambiciózního fotografa v Kristových letech, který se právě zapsal do povědomí národa znamenitým souborem fotografií z přestavby Svatovítského chrámu – v roce 1928 nu totiž vyšlo jedno z jeho vrcholných děl, album fotografií Svatý Vít.
Josef Sudek: Reklamní foto Josef Sudek: Reklamní fotografie, 30. léta 20. stol. Třicátá léta 20. století jsou obdobím, kdy se Sudek nejvíce vzdaluje od podoby, která mu byla později kulturní veřejnosti přisouzena a do níž se tak rád stylizoval: v této době je především zakázkovým reklamním fotografem, na tehdejší poměry velmi drahým, a také cílevědomým živnostníkem, který si k vymáhání honorářů a podávání žalob na dlužníky dokonce najímá advokáta dr. Poppera… Jinými slovy, Sudek si v této době „čichl“ k reklamě, a i když tyto své „zálety“ později snižoval („Z řemeslnýho stanoviska to určitě něco dalo, ale nemohl jsem to dělat pořád. To by člověk zblbnul. Jakmile jsem to udělal, okamžitě jsem dělal zase svoje věci.“ Josef Sudek: O sobě, s. 36), dělal to vesměs s vkusem a osobitostí. Ve 30. letech minulého století žil Sudek čilým společenským životem, zapadl do okruhu umělců scházejících se v kavárně Union a pracoval zejména pro nakladatelství Družstevní práce, kde kromě jiného vyšly jeho kalendáře a vánoční pohlednice. V té době pracuje i na mnoha dalších komerčních zakázkách – třeba na katalogu punčoch a obuvi pro firmu GEC, spolupracuje s továrnou na čokoládu Orion, Ultraphonem, vytváří katalog nové Tatry 77 a tak by se dalo pokračovat.
Výběr z těchto prací představuje komorní výstava v bývalém Sudkově bytě na Úvozu, nazvaná lapidárně Josef Sudek: Reklama. V jejím rámci je poprvé představena Sudkova maketa propagačního kalendáře pro tiskovou agenturu Orbis pro rok 1931, která patří k tomu nejzdařilejšímu z vystavených prací. Ovšem zdaleka nejlepší vystavenou fotografií je Vzpomínka na Hofmana z roku 1975 ze Sudkova souboru Labyrinty, ale to už je jen podle datace úplně jiná kapitola… Josef Sudek: O sobě
O sobě V souvislosti s probíhající výstavou Sudkových reklamních fotografií připomeňme i zajímavou vzpomínkovou knížku, která se patrně v dotisku nedávno dostala na knihkupecké pulty. Její název je lapidární – Josef Sudek: O sobě (vydal Torst s vročením 2001). Knížka zachycuje pět rozhovorů, které s Mistrem nedlouho před jeho smrtí, na začátku roku 1976, vedl tehdy mladý teoretik fotografie Jaroslav Anděl. Knížka je zajímavá především tím, že podle všeho opravdu zachycuje Sudkův autentický, neučesaný a velmi svérázný projev. Sudek tu hovoří způsobem, který může nepřipraveného čtenáře zaskočit, puritána snad dokonce popudit. Například o vztahu umělce a prostředí Sudek hovoří takto: „… ono na toho současníka okolí taky působí, i když na něj bude nadávat, tak na něj bude působit. Nemůže se z něho dostat. „Vyseru se na něj…“ – to je nesmysl, nemůže se vysrat, ale je mu to hovno platný, poněvadž kdyby se na to vysral, tak bude izolovanej v něčem, žejo, a bude s tím na to narážet, a bude nasranej ještě víc.“ (s. 123). Rozhodně je dobře, že se autor rozhovoru a nakladatelští redaktoři nesnažili text „umravnit“ a udělat ze svérázného umělce většího intelektuála než ve skutečnosti byl.
Knížka je cenná právě díky své otevřenosti: Sudek je totiž velmi kritický i k sobě a otevřeně přiznává své slabiny (třeba nechuť číst, neustálý nepořádek ve věcech, neschopnost dokončit jakýkoli projekt nebo zálibu v hromadění věcí). Rozhovor je vedený s mírným ohledem na chronologii (tedy od dětství a mládí k pozdějším letům), ale také s velmi pozvolným důrazem na hlubší a hlubší ponor do světa fotografie (od klubových počátků přes fotografické vzory až po sondy do fotografické teorie). A nakonec, každý zájemce o fotografování tu najde řadu zajímavých věcí z historie fotografické techniky a fotografické tvorby vůbec.
Kniha Josef Sudek: O sobě je zajímavá i tím, že sudkovskou legendu zároveň přiživuje i bourá. Sudek hovoří „jak mu zobák narost“, čímž posiluje svou pověst plebejce a nonkonformisty, ale zároveň otevřeně hovoří o mnoha věcech, které nepasují do obrazu fotografa, který je natolik ponořen do svého umění, že vlastně není schopen se pohybovat v reálném světě.
Jiří Zahradnický http://www.paladix.cz/clanky/dve-vzpominky-na-josefa-sudka.html?PLXID=15647dea1c42d0add0563d0746809008
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