Josef Sudek was born in Prague on 17 March 1896 in the then Austro-Hungarian Empire and died on 15 September 1976 in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, also in Prague. He was a prominent Czech fine art photographer of various motifs and subjects, portraits, he also made a living in reproduction photography, photographed phenomenal compositions of studio arrangements, had a huge range in landscape still life, and also ventured into advertising photography and reportage. He started photography at the age of 17.
He created his masterpieces at a mature age - after he had resigned himself to the influences of modern currents. In the 1930s, his photographs mainly reflected the outside world, and it was only from the 1940s that he found a turn towards himself and an unmistakable creative position that made him well-known abroad. It was then that he began to photograph the famous views from his studio window and arranged still lifes, both of which were processed by contact imprinting of glass plates. Sudek's work was not interrupted either by the war or by the post-war political pressure that forced the artist to follow the doctrine of socialist realism. On the contrary, at that time Sudek returned to pictorialism, and in a number of his works anticipated the later development of photography towards postmodern synthesis, thus becoming an ever-living source of inspiration for future generations. Together with Fratišek Drtikol, Jaroslav Dritikol and Jaromír Funk, he is one of the most important Czech photographers of the period between the First and Second World War. He is also one of the exceptional avant-garde photographers in Europe.
Josef Sudek had a truly incredible range of topics and disciplines. Yet from various memoirs of his mainly late colleagues - photographers, we learn that time played a fundamental role for him not only in photography, but also in life. He was extremely patient; for example, he and MUDr. Petr Helbich went out to take photographs very often. One day Josef Sudek decided to take a picture of a cherry tree on the Lesser Side, which was blooming more and more beautifully every year. They agreed on a time and went out, but Sudek didn't take pictures, they just talked about everything under the cherry tree and every next day at the same hour they went to the same cherry tree and Sudek still didn't say anything. Dr. Helbich was already nervous, but he didn't dare to say anything to the master. He was glad to talk and spend time with such a great Czech photographer, but somehow he wanted to take at least one picture. On the eleventh day, when they were talking again under the cherry tree, Josef Sudek suddenly said "See the sun? Now is the time, let's finally get to work." And indeed Sudek made a phenomenal picture that was literally like a view into a blooming garden of Eden. Photographer Josef Sudek followed the principle that everything takes its time.
Gnews.cz-Jan Vojtěch
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