Josef Koudelka
Josef Koudelka (b. January 10, 1938 in Boskovice, Czechoslovakia) is a Czech photographer.
Biography
Josef Koudelka was born in 1938 in Boskovice, Moravia. He began photographing his family and the surroundings with a 6 x 6 Bakelite camera. He studied at the Czech Technical University in Prague (CVUT) between 1956 and 1961, receiving a Degree in Engineering in 1961. He staged his first photographic exhibition the same year. Later he worked as an aeronautical engineer in Prague and Bratislava.
He began taking commissions from theatre magazines, and regularly photographed stage productions at Prague's Theatre Behind the Gate on a Rolleiflex camera. In 1967, Koudelka decided to give up his career in engineering for full-time work as a photographer.
He had returned from a project photographing gypsies in Romania just two days before the Soviet invasion, in August 1968. He witnessed and recorded the military forces of the Warsaw Pact as they invaded Prague and crushed the Czech reforms. Koudelka's negatives were smuggled out of Prague into the hands of the Magnum agency, and published anonymously in The Sunday Times Magazine under the initials P. P. (Prague Photographer) for fear of reprisal to him and his family.
His pictures of the events became dramatic international symbols. In 1969 the "anonymous Czech photographer" was awarded the Overseas Press Club's Robert Capa Gold Medal for photographs requiring exceptional courage.
With Magnum to recommend him to the British authorities, Koudelka applied for a three-month working visa and fled to England in 1970, where he applied for political asylum and stayed for more than a decade. In 1971 he joined Magnum Photos. A nomad at heart, he continued to wander around Europe with his camera and little else.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Koudelka sustained his work through numerous grants and awards, and continued to exhibit and publish major projects like Gypsies (1975) and Exiles (1988). Since 1986, he has worked with a panoramic camera and issued a compilation of these photographs in his book Chaos in 1999. Koudelka has had more than a dozen books of his work published, including most recently in 2006 the retrospective volume Koudelka.
Koudelka has won awards such as the Prix Nadar (1978), a Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989), a Grand Prix Cartier-Bresson (1991), and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (1992). Significant exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography, New York; the Hayward Gallery, London; the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam; and the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.
He and his work received support and acknowledgment from his friend the French photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson. He was also supported by the Czech art historian Anna Farova.[1]
In 1987 Koudelka became a French citizen, and was able to return to Czechoslovakia for the first time in 1991. He then produced Black Triangle, documenting his country's wasted landscape.
Koudelka resides in France and Prague and is continuing his work documenting the European landscape. He has two daughters and a son.
Work
Koudelka's early work significantly shaped his later photography, and its emphasis on social and cultural rituals as well as death. He soon moved on to a more personal, in depth photographic study of the Gypsies of Slovakia, and later Romania. This work was exhibited in Prague in 1967. Throughout his career, Koudelka has been praised for his ability to capture the presence of the human spirit amidst dark landscapes. Desolation, waste, departure, despair and alienation are common themes in his work. His characters sometimes seem to come out of fairytales. Still, some see hope within his work — the endurance of human endeavor, in spite of its fragility. His later work focuses on the landscape removed of human subjects.
Awards
- 2004 - Cornell Capa Infinity Award, International Center of Photography, US
- 1992 - Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation Photography Prize, Sweden
- 1991 - Grand Prix Henri Cartier-Bresson, France
- 1987 - Grand Prix National de la Photographie, French Ministry of Culture, France
- 1980 - National Endowment for the Arts Council, US
- 1978 - Prix Nadar, France
- 1976 - British Arts Council Grant to cover life in the British Isles, UK
- 1973 - British Arts Council Grant to cover Gypsy life in Britain, UK
- 1972 - British Arts Council Grant to cover Kendal and Southend, UK
- 1969 - Robert Capa Gold Medal Award, National Press Photographers Association, US
- 1967 - Award by Union of Czechoslovakian Artists, Czechoslovakia
Exhibitions
- 2010 - Invasion Prague 68, Photo Cube Market Square, Guernsey Exhibition information
- 2008 - Screening at Théâtre Antique, Arles, for the Rencontres d'Arles festival, France
- 2008 - Prague 1968, Aperture Gallery, NYC
- 2008 - Koudelka, Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece
- 2008 - Invaze (Invasion) Old Town Hall, Prague, Czech Republic
- 2006 - Les Rencontres d'Arles festival, France: exhibition and laureate to the Discovery Award
- 2003 – Teatro del Tempo, Mercati di Traiano, Roma, Italy
- 2002/03 - Rétrospective
- Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France
- Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico
- Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Monterrey, Mexico
- 2002 - Josef Koudelka: Fotograf, National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic
- 1999/2001 - Chaos
- Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma, Italy
- Cantieri Culturali della Zisa, Palermo, Italy
- Palazzo Marino alla Scala, Milano Italy
- The Snellman Hall, Helsinki, Finland
- sala de exposiciones de Plaza de España, Madrid, Spain
- 1998 – Reconnaissance: Wales, National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff, UK
- 1995/97 - Periplanissis: following Ulysses' Gaze
- Mylos, Thessaloniki, Greece
- Zappeion, Athens, Greece
- Centre culturel Una Volta, Bastia, France
- ville de Rodez, France
- Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
- Museo di Storia della Fotografia, Fratelli Alinari, Firenze, Italy
- 1994 – Cerny trojuhelnik - Podkrusnohori : Fotografie 1990–1994 (Black Triangle), Salmovsky Palac, Prague, Czech Republic
- 1990 – Josef Koudelka z Fotografického dila 1958-1990, Umeleckoprumyslové museum, Prague, Czechoslovakia
- 1989 – Josef Koudelka, Mission Transmanche, galerie de l'ancienne poste, Calais, France
- 1988/89 – Josef Koudelka
- Centre National de la Photographie, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
- International Center of Photography, New York, US
- Akademie der Künste, Berlin
- Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
- IVAM, Valencia, Spain
- 1984 – Josef Koudelka, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
- 1977 – Gitans: la fin du voyage
- Galerie Delpire, Paris
- Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland; The Tel-Aviv Museum, Israel
- Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
- 1975 – Josef Koudelka, Museum of Modern Art, New York, US
- 1968 – Josef Koudela: Divadelni fotografie – 1965-1968, Divadlo za branou, Prague, Czechoslovakia
- 1967 – Josef Koudela: Cikáni – 1961-1966, Divadlo za branou, Prague, Czechoslovakia
- 1961 – Divadlo Semafor, Prague, Czechoslovakia
Bibliography
- Koudelka Piedmont Contrasto, 2010, ISBN 978-8869652172
- Invasion 68: Prague US: Aperture Foundation, ISBN 978-1597110686; France: Editions Tana, ISBN 978-2845674387, 2008,
- Joseph Koudelka Photofile, Thames & Hudson, 2007, ISBN 978-0500410837
- Koudelka, France: Delpire; Italy: Contrasto; US: Aperture; UK: Thames & Hudson; Germany: Braus; Spain: Lunwerg; Czech Republic: Fototorst, 2006
- Koudelka: Camargue, France: Actes Sud, 2006, ISBN 978-2742761746
- L'épreuve totalitaire (essay by Jean-Pierre Montier), Delpire, France, 2004
- Théâtre du Temps, France: Actes Sud, ISBN 978-2742744350; (Teatro del Tempo), Italy: Peliti Associati; Greece: Apeiron, 2003
- Josef Koudelka, Czech Republic: Torst, 2002, ISBN 978-8072151660
- Lime Stone, France: La Martinière, 2001
- Chaos, France: Nathan/Delpire; UK: Phaidon Press; Italy: Federico Motta Editore, 1999, ISBN 978-0714845944
- Reconnaissance Wales, Cardiff, UK: Fotogallery/ National Museums and Galleries of Wales, 1998, ISBN 978-1872771458
- Photopoche: Josef Koudleka France: Cnp, 1997, ISBN 978-2097541147
- Cerný Trojuhelník - Podkrušnohorí : Fotografie 1990-1994 (The Black Triangle: The Foothills of the Ore Mountain) Vesmir, Czech Republic, 1994
- Josef Koudelka. Photographs by Josef Koudelka, Hasselblad Center, 1993
- Josef Koudelka: Fotografie Divadlo za branou 1965-1970, Divadlo za Branou II, Czech Republic, 1993
- Prague 1968, France: Centre National de la Photographie, 1990
- Animaux, Trois Cailloux/maison de la Culture d'Amiens, France, 1990
- Josef Koudelka, Mission Photographique Transmanche, France: Editions de la Différence, 1989
- Exiles, Centre National de la Photographie, France; Delpire éditeur, France (Exiles), Aperture, US; Thames & Hudson, UK, 1988, ISBN 978-0500542088
- Josef Koudelka. Photographs by Josef Koudelka. Introduction by Bernard Cuau. Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, 1984
- Josef Koudelka Photo Poche, Centre National de la Photographie, France, 1984
- Josef Koudelka: I Grandi Fotografi, Gruppo Editoriale Fabbri, Italy, 1982
- Gitans : la fin du voyage, Delpire, France, France: Delpire, ASIN B0014M0TV8; Gypsies, US: Aperture, ISBN 978-0912334745, 1975
- Josef Koudelka, 1968
- Rozbor insenace Divadla Na zabradli v Praze, 1966
- Kral Ubu: Rozbor inscenace Divadla Na Zabradli v Praze (with Alfred Jarry), Divadelni Ustav, Czechoslovakia, 1966
- Diskutujeme o moralce dneska, Nakladatelstvi Politické Literatury, Czechoslovakia, 1965
Grants and Awards
- British Arts Council grant (1976)
- The Prix Nadar (1978)
- The United States National Endowment for the Arts Photography Grant (1980),
- The Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989)
- The Grand Prix Cartier-Bresson (1991)
See also
References
External links
Persondata |
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Koudelka, Josef |
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Short description |
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Date of birth |
January 10, 1938 |
Place of birth |
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Date of death |
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Place of death |
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