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Distributed for Hirmer Publishers

Josef Sudek

The Legacy of a Deeper Vision

During a legendary career that spanned almost six decades, Czech photographer Josef Sudek, the “poet of Prague,” developed a craftsmanship and technical virtuosity that was unparalleled among his contemporaries. Early in his career, though the prevailing art movements of the 1920s and ’30s included cubism, surrealism, and the Czech avant-garde, Sudek sought his own approach characterized by a striking mastery of light.
 
Copiously illustrated with photographs from the Art Gallery of Ontario—which will also exhibit the photographs through December 2012—this book takes readers on a journey through Sudek’s life and work. Included here are essays by some of the foremost writers on Sudek’s work, including curator Maia-Mari Sutnik, photo-historian Antonín Dufek, Canadian Art editor Richard Rhodes, and photographer Geoffrey James. Sudek’s photographs also feature heavily in Irish novelist John Banville’s Prague Pictures: Portraits of a City, which forms a biographical portrait of the photographer, and several excerpts from the book are included here. Rounding out the volume is a detailed biographical chronology by Czech art historian and Sudek expert Anna Fárová.
 
The photographs in this book cover every stage of Sudek’s extensive career, shedding light on his lifelong quest to perfect his photographic vision.

288 pages | 210 halftones | 10 x 12 | © 2012

Art: Photography


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Table of Contents

Director’s Foreword
Tribute to Anna Fárová
Recollections from Prague Pictures
      John Banville

Plates
Essays

Sudek the Outsider
      Antonín Dufek
Josef Sudek and the Panorama
      Geoffrey James
Josef Sudek: Grace Notes
      Richard Rhodes
In the Studio, In the Garden: Variations of Light and Magic
      Maia-Mari Sutnik

Josef Sudek Chronology and Selected Solo Exhibitions
      Anna Fárová
Notes to List of Photographs
      Maia-Mari Sutnik
List of Photographs

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