Publisher's Description
Josef Sudek (1896–1976) began his career in photography
by submitting prints to international
salons—i.e. competitions in which photographs
were assessed by a jury, and the results published
in a salon yearbook. From the start, Sudek’s work
met with great success at the salons, alongside
that of Drtikol, Krupka and others, but it was only
with the series From My Studio Window, which
originated during World War II, that his name
found wider fame. As a result, Sudek’s salon photographs,
dating from his return from World War I
in 1918 until around 1932 (by which time he had
begun his own business), have tended to be overlooked.
The Unknown Josef Sudek retrieves these
early works: beautiful still lifes, portraits, street
scenes and interiors. Presenting the largest collection
of this work to date, the publication reevaluates
the importance of the photographer’s earliest
experiments, and demonstrates how he used
the salons as a testing ground for new ideas.
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