JOSEF SUDEK
Untitled (Detail with Shell), 1951-54
© Gabina Fárová / Courtesy Kicken Berlin
Biography
During the First World War Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976), a bookbinder by trade, was wounded and lost his right arm. His invalidity led him to take up photography after the war. He studied from 1922 to 1924 at the State School of Graphic Arts in Prague with Karel Novák. Sudek, whose first pictures were inspired by Pictorialist photography and by the work of František Drtikol, opened his own studio for portrait and commercial photography in 1927 and turned to the visual language of Neue Sachlichkeit. During Czechoslovakia’s occupation and World War II he withdrew into private life; his photography after 1940 is characterized by still life series and landscapes. In 1956, he published Prag panoramatická, a volume with panorama shots of the capital.
