This commemorative exhibition of works from the creative legacy of Josef Sudek (1896–1976) coincides with the milestone anniversaries of the photographer’s birth and death. The themes of these works were shaped by the artist’s deep connection to Prague. On the one hand, he drew inspiration from the city’s spirit; on the other, he contributed to its renown through a series of lavishly illustrated publications.

A native of Kolín, Sudek began exploring Prague in the summer of 1910, when he started an apprenticeship as a bookbinder there. Three or four years later, he was already capturing the capital of the Czech Crown through photography—objectively documenting its most picturesque views. (He pasted 3.5 × 5-centimeter positives onto the pages of a portable album, which has survived.)

Pragensia Sudek resumed developing this project after returning from the Italian front, where he lost his right hand. As a long-term resident of institutions for war veterans of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, he favored a soft-focus lens, which lent his photographs a blurred watercolor effect. He applied pictorialism both to interiors (the series From the Invalidovna, 1922–27, and From the Extension of St. Vitus Cathedral, 1924–28), as well as in a variety of exterior genres.

He sought to express Prague’s genius loci in a wide variety of ways throughout his productive career. In the late 1920s, for example, he was drawn to taking nighttime photographs of monuments, sharply illuminated by spotlights installed to mark the tenth anniversary of the independent republic. Ultimately, however, he entrusted a key role to naturally diffused light, which is capable of shaping the three-dimensionality of scenes without dazzling the viewer with sharp contrasts.

After all these transformations, Sudek devoted himself to seemingly mundane phenomena. Celebrating them, however, required extraordinary ingenuity. Sudek took a particular liking to gardens as special oases that defied the hustle and bustle of the big city—both the large, public ones and the unpretentious ones. Among them, he particularly favored his own, but no less so the more elegant—though similarly compact—enchanting garden of architect Otto Rothmayer. We are also happy to return to this garden in our selection of exhibits.

The installation at the Josef Sudek Studio in Malá Strana invites visitors to a place where, beginning in the summer of 1927, the artist worked his way toward his own, distinctly Sudek-style visions. The gallery has been enriching the cultural scene since September 2000, and the PPF Group’s photography collection—of which Josef Sudek remains the key artist—has been growing for just as long.

Text: Josef Moucha

Curators: Josef Moucha and Lucie Mlynářová

The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the Václav Špála Gallery.