Detail View: University Art Galleries (UMassD): [Josef Sudek's Work on Display]

JOSEF SUDEK FOTOGRAFIE, PRAHA 1956 Photogravures of Work From 1918-55 - KAREL TUMA: Carnival in Roztoky and Unetice 2006

June 11 - September 10, 2009

2009

University Art Gallery (UMass Dartmouth Galleries)

Lasse B. Antonsen

June 11 - September 10, 2009 This exhibition of 71 photogravures by the Czech photographer Josef Sudek, is a presentation of slightly less than half of the images reproduced in the 1956 book the exhibition takes its name from. When the book was published in 1956, Josef Sudek had been a famous photographer in Czechoslovakia for quite some time, and a well-known figure in Prague where he was seen daily, carrying his large camera and tripod. Josef Sudek was born in 1896 in Kolin, Bohemia, and died in Prague in 1976. Originally trained as a bookbinder, he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army and served in World War I where he was wounded and lost his right arm. During his three-year convalescence in an Army Hospital, he took up photography. The earliest photographs in the exhibition show some of his fellow soldiers and the type of romantic Pictorialist images that he produced early on. Sudek then informally studied for a couple of years with the photographer Jaromir Funke, and the two developed a close relationship with strong mutual influences. Jaromir Funke and Josef Sudek can be seen as representatives of Czech modernism. Both, however, worked in a romantic and poetic mode that blends Pictorialist notions with the severity of modernism, while transforming the ordinary into a stage like presence, often reminiscent of the Surrealists' concern with a metaphysical reality. In the end, both Funke and Sudek developed a highly personal world, rich in complex moods and feelings. Josef Sudek has now become known as "The Poet of Prague. A shy, retiring person, he never married. He was not a recluse, however. He had a large collection of classical and modern music, and held weekly soirees in his studio, where artists and musicians listened to music from his vast record collection. His studio was destroyed by fire a few years after his death, but has now been rebuilt in his honor, and serves as an exhibition space for young Czech photographers work. Like Josef Sudek, Karel Tuma is a chronicler of Prague. However, where Sudek almost always focused on the city as largely empty of people, presenting Prague as a poetic, dreamy, and at times melancholy stage set, Tuma focuses on street life in ongoing series investigating the life of immigrants, gypsies, vagrants and drug addicts. Karel Tuma was born in 1975 in Prague. He was a business major in college. After college he worked as a stage technician at "Na Vinohradech" Theater in Prague. In 2005 he graduated from FAMU, the Film and Television School at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. While at FAMU, his strong social engagement led him to work for the organization "Clovek v tisni" (People in Need), and he became a founding member of the photographic group "Rovnyma nohama" (Straight Legs). Karel Tuma now teaches documentary photography at Charles University in Prague. Roztoky and Unetice are small towns located north and northwest of Prague, in the Czech Republic. The Carnival or Shrove Tuesday celebration featured in the photographs is partially a staged event with actors and puppets, funded by the government, and partially a spontaneous celebration by the local population. Karel Tuma is both a critical and sympathetic observer of the celebrations, expressing nostalgia for a time when he believed a more genuine celebration took place. The photographs show his conflicted attitude. Some images emphasize the pathetic nature of the celebrants, others the innocence and delight of children, and others again, the magical moments when time and ordinary life appear transcended. This is the first exhibition of Karel Tuma's work in this country.

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http://www1.umassd.edu/cvpa/universityartgallery/past/2009/sudek.cfm

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UMass Dartmouth Art Galleries

Sudek, Josef

Czech

17 March 1896, Kolín, Bohemia – 15 September 1976, Prague

osef Sudek (b. March 17, 1896, Kolin, Bohemia – d. September 15, 1976) was a Czech photographer, best known for his haunting night-scapes of Prague. Originally a bookbinder, Sudek was badly injured during action by the Hungarian Army on the Italian Front of World War I in 1916. Although he had no experience with photography and was one-handed due to his amputation, he was given a camera and studied photography for two years in Prague under Jaromir Funke. His Army disability pension gave him leeway to make art, and he worked during the 1920s in the romantic Pictorialist style. Always pushing at the boundaries, a local camera club expelled him for arguing about the need to move forwards from 'painterly' photography. Sudek then founded the progressive Czech Photographic Society in 1924. Despite only having one arm, he used large, bulky cameras with the aid of assistants. Sudek's photography is sometimes said to be modernist. But this is only true of a couple of years in the 1930s, during which he undertook commercial photography and thus worked "in the style of the times". Primarily, his personal photography is neo-romantic. His early work included many series of light falling in the interior of St. Vitus cathederal. During and after World War II Sudek created haunting night-scapes and panoramas of Prague, photographed the wooded landscape of Bohemia, and the window-glass that led to his garden (the famous The Window of My Atelier series). He went on to photograph the crowded interior of his studio (the Labyrinths series). His first Western show was at George Eastman House in 1974 and he published 16 books during his life. Sudek's individualism did not fit in with the new post-war Czech Socialist Republic, but fortunately the strong artistic tradition of the country meant that there were many mavericks in the establishment who supported his work, and it continued to be published. Finally he was to become the first photographer to be honoured by the Republic with the title of 'Artist of Merit' and in his 70th year, his life's work was recognized by the 'Order of Labour'. Known as the "Poet of Prague", Sudek never married, and was a shy, retiring person. He never appeared at his exhibit openings and few people appear in his photographs. Despite the privations of the war and Communism, he kept a renowned record collection of classical music. He died, still keen to do more work, at the age of 80 in 1976.

http://www.josefsudek.net/

http://www.rogallery.com/Sudek_Josef/Sudek_Josef_Biography.html

[Josef Sudek's Work on Display]

photography

photography

1950's

Joseph Sudek, Czechoslovakian, trained as a bookbinder (his younger sister went into photography) but had a become a keen amateur photographer before being called into military service in the First World War in 1915. He produced several albums of pictures - including landscapes showing splintered trees and other war damage - during his almost three years of war service, which ended when he was wounded by artillery fire from his own side during an attack, resulting in the loss of his right arm. Sudek's pictures often play on the lower tones of the photographic scale, full of mystery and darkness. He was not afraid to produce prints with a very limited tonal scale. His small, unorthodox and intensely personal pictures were often dismissed by photographic critics attuned as they were to the kind of full-scale print we associate with the work of Ansel Adams and the American 'straight photography' tradition. His work has an earthy and elemental quality; it is intense and dramatic, full of emotion.

Prague - city/landscape and still life

http://www.pbase.com/omoses/josef_sudek

2013

BC