Josef Sudek (55 (Series).)

From Publishers Weekly
Little-known in the West, Czech photographer Josef Sudek (1896-1976), who lost an arm in WW I, endured from 1938 onwards the hardships of Nazi and Soviet occupations, but persisted in his art, producing an intensely personal and emotional body of work. That work is classified in this luxurious monograph into three major categories: Prague city panoramas; architectural and street studies comparable to Eugene Atget's Paris portfolios; and evocative "mood" compositions--views of an ancient Greek coin, a Gothic church, an Art Nouveau window, bare winter branches, chestnuts in bloom. In a preface, Kirschner, photography curator of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, recalls how Sudek created from limited settings a "Magic Garden" of photographs--and, in contrast to most of his work, at times embraced surrealism: his often startling use of a glass eye as a prop was a favored device. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In an embarrassment of riches, books on Josef Sudek keep appearing, each one more attractive than the last. Time was when few knew the poetic black-and-white landscapes and still lifes of this Czech master, but since Bullaty's Sudek (1978) and Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague (1990), his images have become reasonably familiar. In this volume--certainly the biggest, most lavish of the lot--Kirschner adds biographical knowledge about the elusive "poet of Prague" and gives us several new images, making his effort a must for Sudek devotees, although perhaps less urgent for collections including one of the earlier works. Still, every art collection needs at least one book on this melancholy photographer who, rather like Joseph Cornell, creator of tiny, boxed environments, was an isolated, unique artist and, also like Cornell, one of the century's great visionaries. Gretchen Garner



Language Notes
Text: German


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