Czech Book

Born in what is now the eastern Czech Republic in 1938, Josef Koudelka is one of the foremost photographers of his generation. He originally made a living as an aeronautical engineer, but began to gain recognition as a photographer through his pictures of drama productions. His debut exhibition was unveiled at Prague’s Semafor Theatre in 1961, and soon afterward he began contributing to a theater magazine, Divadlo. While this connection to the stage seems arbitrary, it helped define two of his key qualities as a photographer: a knack for instinctively recognizing dramatic intensity in his subjects’ lives, and an uncommon ability to observe and record without disturbing the scene being played out before him.

His indebtedness to theater is just one of the revelations in a new career-spanning volume, Koudelka, in which the itinerant Czech master presents more than 150 of his most celebrated images—from his earliest shots, never before seen, to the bold, semiabstract panoramas that comprise his work today. It also includes the photographs first published in his best-known books, Gypsies (1975) and Exiles (1988), now costly collector’s items.

In his early work, Koudelka seemed to have trouble finding a theme. But the 1968 Russian invasion of Prague immersed him in the topics of upheaval and alienation that were to characterize his later work. He took to the streets, capturing events as they unfolded, and when his shots were smuggled out and published anonymously, they received international acclaim. Since 1970, he has lived in exile from his native country, training his lens mostly on modern Europe’s complex landscapes and honing a stark, desolate style. But it isn’t all gloom: whatever his subject matter, Koudelka’s photographs are marked by his indelible persona. It is this that enables them to transcend mere form: with the eye of a poet, he sees into the soul of his subjects, giving viewers a privileged glimpse into the ineffable.