In a career that spanned nearly seven decades, Josef Sudek, one of the masters of twentieth-century photography, created his own solitary world of shadow and light, of theme and variation. The more than 100 images in this monograph convey the spirit of Prague as well as the spirit of Sudek.
From the mid-1920s until his death in 1976, Czech photographer Joseph Sudek shot Gothic and Baroque architecture, street scenes and still lifes--usually leaving the frame free of people and capturing a poetic and highly individualistic glimpse of Prague. The still lifes are the best known aspect of his oeuvre; indeed, his graceful depictions of drinking-glasses and eggs are familiar to those who don't necessarily even know his name. Acceding to his reclusive nature, Sudek began The Window of My Studio series in the 1940s. It allowed him to capture street scenes without going outside and helped him discover a particular fondness for how glass refracts light. The still lifes emerged from the informal arrangements Sudek would make on his windowsill, and occupied him for a number of years. Depicting a range of quotidian objects with a marked artfulness--some were made in homage to favorite painters like Caravaggio--the series deserves a deeper look. This volume is the first in-depth study of Sudek's still lifes and also explores his creative use of carbon printing--a pigment process on rag paper not often used photographically--which lent so many of his images such extraordinary depth and warmth.
Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan (1809–1892) was the wife of the mathematician and logician Augustus De Morgan and mother of ceramicist William De Morgan. In Threescore Years and Ten, completed in 1887, edited by her daughter Mary, and published in 1895, De Morgan recounts her formative early years and the influence of her father, the social reformer William Frend. She followed in his footsteps and fought for many causes, including higher education for women and prison reform. She was also an early animal rights activist and campaigned against vivisection. Throughout her life, De Morgan encountered some of the leading writers and thinkers of the time – she was introduced to William Blake when she was a child and many years later found herself the neighbour of Thomas Carlyle. De Morgan's reflections on her life offer an insight into the intellectual world of a Victorian social reformer.
Reportážní fotografie Jana Šibíka z roku 1989. Pád Berlínské zdi, revoluce v Československu, revoluce v Rumunsku.
Fotografie Zdeňka Tmeje podávají, umělecky i informativně, obrazovou výpověď o nacistické otrokářské praxi ve Vratislavi v letech 1942-1944. Knihu sestavila a původními autorovými komentáři a biografií doplnila Blanka Chocholová, dcera fotografa Václava Chocholy (1923 -2005). Autory textů jsou pak historička fotografie Anna Fárová a znalec novodobých německých dějin, historik Tomáš Jelínek. Souběžný anglický, německý a český text.
Čtvrtý svazek knižní řady Sudkových fotografických cyklů představuje jeho zakázkovou tvorbu. Historik umění Vojtěch Lahoda ve svém doprovodném textu ukazuje vývoj Sudkova vztahu k reklamní fotografii, zdůrazňuje klíčové Sudkovo setkání s Družstevní prací a Ladislavem Sutnarem a ukazuje, jak v mnoha případech Sudkovy snímky vznikající na zakázku volně přecházely v jeho volnou tvorbu. Sudek vytvářel na svých snímcích ze skleněných předmětů abstraktní kompozice, pracoval s neobvyklými úhly pohledu i se světlem. Sám si své reklamní práce vážil a některé své takto vzniklé snímky zahrnoval do svého díla a vystavoval je.
