Josef Sudek Euro LF pioneer?

[Christopher Nisperos]

Today is Josef Sudek's birthday. If he were still alive, he'd be 109. Sudek was Czech, and as far as I can tell, he and France's Eugene Atget occupy unique positions in the history of early 20th century photography on the European continent in employing their pure and simple vision using large format photography. To be sure, they weren't the only ones shooting large format ... it's just that they did it better than others at the time.

In the late 1920's/early 1930's while most photographers on the European continent were using small plate cameras and early rollfilm cameras -- and as Leica-mania gained ground -- Josef Sudek, in spite of his grave handicap of being one-armed, was schlepping his large format cameras and tripod through the narrow cobblestone streets and up the steep hills around Prague Castle.

While my post is a bit of a pretext to honor this great, shy and gentle artist, I do have one question: is anyone aware of any other photographers on the European continent during above the mentioned period who used large format as extensively and expressively as the Atget and Sudek (actually, Sudek photographed almost until his death in 1976)? I'm sure I'm missing someone in one the former "Iron Curtain" countries, for example.

Meanwhile, for an interesting bio on Sudek, go to:
http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~sawyer/Sudek.htm

[Bill_1856]

That's certainly an interesting observation, if true. And thanks for the link.

[dan nguyen]

Merci beaucoup pour le lien...

Sudek is one of my favorite old-timers....

[Ole Tjugen]

Knud Knudsen started earlier (and stopped earlier too), but he carried a plate camera all over western Norway between 1864 and 1900. He was one of the pioneers of the "artistic landscape" - taking pictures solely for the pictorial content and not to depict the subject. Although the vast majority of his work was of the latter type...

The University of Bergen, Norway has a collection of about 16.000 of his negatives.

[Antonio Corcuera]

Spanish pictorialist photographer, Jose Ortiz Echague (1886-1980) - most of his prints are using the Fresson technique. The University of Navarre has an extensive website on his legacy, which is worth checking out - http://www.unav.es/oechague/

[Christopher Nisperos]

To Bill and Dan, de rien! And to Ole and Antonio, thanks for opening my eyes. I'll look up Knudsen (sounds interesting).
Antonio's link to the University of Navarre's site for Jose Ortiz Echague's work is a revelation! I said to myself, "Wow. This guy was shooting (and printing) 100 years ago a look that, today, we think Salgado invented".

One thing I really appreciate about this forum is that it keeps me humble. No matter how much we (think) we know, we always discover new things here, or refresh our memory. When I was a tech rep for EPOI, Joseph Cooper (Nikon Handbook) once told me, in the simplest of wisdom, "You can't know everything .. that why they make dictionaries".

Anyway, next up, —perhaps on another thread— I'll post some information about Jean Dieuzaide, a French photographer who should be better known (he died a couple of years ago). I must say, his work is a bit maligned in his own country ---by the
Cartier-Bressonians in Paris -- as being banal and uninteresting . . . but then again, they feel the same way about Ansel and most of the West Coast type of photography anyway, so to heck with them.

Any forum participants from Russia? I have a nagging suspicion that somebody there must have done some important large format work in the early part of the 20th century. But I could be wrong. Afterall, with a revolution still fresh in the air, maybe guys (or gals) weren't in the mood to shoot landscapes as the country was in turmoil.

Reminds me of what I told a French photojournalist friend of mine when he paraphrased Cartier-Bresson's snobby remark about the West Coasters ('I don't understand these guys. The world is falling apart and all they can photograph is rocks and trees'). I told him, "Where there is misery and horror, you photograph misery and horror. Where there is the grand beauty of nature all around you, why should look for misery and horror to photograph? Shut up and drink your coffee."

Sorry to get bloggish!

[Antonio Corcuera]

yes, Ortiz Echague's work is extraordinary and hardly known outside Spain. As for Russian masters, I only know Rodchenko, not sure if he did any LF, but he has great pictures like this one: http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/1998/rodchenko/texts/photography_jpg.html

[CP Goerz]

I still remember this picture of Sudeks from over ten years ago it was a chestnut tree in bloom, it was so #$%^&* perfect. Every tree picture I have ever taken looked harsh and lifeless by comparison...maybe they harsh and lifeless but he showed me how bad I was....THANKS!!!! ;-)

CP Goerz.

[Mark Sawyer]

Please add me to the growing list of Sudek admirers. His is among the most beautifully seen and sensitive photography I know of, especialy that shot around his studio windows.

"...is anyone aware of any other photographers on the European continent during above the mentioned period who used large format as extensively and expressively as the Atget and Sudek "

If you haven't seen Frederick Evans' work in the catherdrals, attics, and barn lofts of England, you're in for a treat. Beautifully printed in platinum, these are the most expressive architectural photographs I know of, (very different from what we automatically think of as "architectural photography" today.) Peter Henry Emerson also did some wonderful things; especially his work on the Norfolk Broads.

[paulr]

"The world is falling apart and all they can photograph is rocks and trees'

I think William Carlos Williams answered him best:

It is difficutl / to get the news from poems / Yet men die miserably every day / For lack / Of what is found there.

There's a lot of great contemporary Czech and Slovak photography ... in some ways very different from Sudek, but all coming from the same surreal/metaphysical/pataphysical tradition. The young guys all consider Sudek to be their patron saint. Jan Saudek got famous for a bit in the 80s, but I like the work of these new guys much more.

My friend Anne Mcdonald introduced me a whole group of them ... she curates this site:

http://www.czechslovakphotos.com/

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

I remember seeing a book about Sudek and was mesmerised by his vision. I just looked at the work of Jose Ortiz Echague and I don't know wheather to go out and shoot or just throw my equipment in the trash. I now feel so inadequate. His work just put me into a whole new world. Thanks for introducing me to his work.

[Mark_C]

No, Sudek was not a pioneer, he was one of many great unknown photographers not only unknown here in North America but as well in his native land for many years.

There were photographers with (large format) cameras all over Europe (and Asia). The history of photography is much more than Adams, Evans, Stieglitz and Weston. I am sorry for not mentioning few dozen other american names, but...

Look at birthplaces of people like Andre Kertesz: Budapest, Hungary; Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Bacsborsod, Hungary; Brassai - Gyula Halasz: Brasso, Hungary; August Sander: Herdorf, Germany; Jan Bulhak: Ostaszyn, Poland/Lithuania/Russia/Belarus; Edward Steichen: Luxembourg; Weegee -Artur Fellig: Zloczow, Poland/Austria; Yousuf Karsh: Mardin, Armenia; Philippe Halsman: Riga, Latvia; Frantisek Dritkol: Pribram, Bohemia; Jan Saudek: Prague, Czech... and dozens more

Some of them studied and worked their whole life in their homeland or moved to more friendly country in Europe, some crossed the pond and become famous in US as well. Some did not survive because of the wars and we know them as "photographer unknown" credit line under a photo. Of course the LF gear was a standard equipment for many decades for photographers even during forties and fifties.

Read the text at the following link to learn about Jan Bulhak (http://www.vintageworks.net/exhibit/showcase_descrp.php/15/1/1/0) (unfortunately the photos over there do not even scratch the surface of the mountain of his works). And he was one among many others too.

Have you seen Sudek's panoramas of Prague? Wonderful photographs of beautiful city.

What about italian LF photographers? There must be someone besides fictional Paparazzo with "tiny but fast" Rollei. Leonardo with his camera obscura? Oh no, he could not get film from Kodak. How little we know if we keep looking only into our woods.

As for pioneering work- we have our own perception of what was "avant garde", we see works from the past with accumuleted knowledge. What Atget, Sudek, Bulhak or Sander did was hard work to preserve for us what they knew would disappear. And their worlds did vanish from reality, through their photographs those worlds remain in our social and cultural memory. They did not take thise photographs to be pioneers in straight or pictorial photography or to improve eight zone reproduction in printing, they were labourers of their beloved craft on mission to preserve past for us.

[paulr]

I have no reason to believe Sudek was a pioneer for using a large format camera, but he was a great pioneer in terms of vision.

It may be true that we "see works from the past with accumuleted knowledge," and that "What Atget, Sudek, Bulhak or Sander did was hard work to preserve for us what they knew would disappear." But our accmulated knowledge gives us more clarity in seeing what people have seen for decades: that artists like Atget and Sudek photographed the world differently from anyone else.

What does it mattrer that Atget's stated intent was creating a catalog of scenes for set designers? The way he did it was unique, and its degree of uniqueness was illuminated by the world's eventual digestion of European and American modernism.

Sudek likewise, whatever his unpretentious ambitions, gave us a new vision that has inspired at least three generations of photographers all over the world. "Avant garde" means being on the front line, the leading edge of something new. How Sudek got there is an in interesting topic for speculation, but however he did it, there he was.

[Christopher Nisperos]

I tend to agree with paulr, that Sudek was a pioneer in respect to his vision. All the photographers named by Mark C. and Mark Sawyer are certainly excellent-to-superb, but the gist of my question was about LF (I guess that would start at about 9x12 cm or 13x18 cm in the euro-sizes) photographers living and working on the European continent during the early 20th century.

Adding still life and landscapes as parameters, I still see only Sudek and Atget as the stand-outs. Paul Strand almost makes it into the club, but I believe that his residence in France only began in the 1950's. (By the way, U.S. born Strand was of Czech origin too). Sander, whose work I adore, was of course a portraitist. The majority of European photography was —and still is— very 'people' oriented. Sudek stuck to his guns, and while he did take portraits also, his strongest work was in still lifes and landscapes. Ok, that perhaps doesn't make him a "pioneer" , in the strict sense. "Avant garde"? I don't know. . . sounds like he'd have to part of a movement with other artists. He wasn't. "Rebel" doesn't work either, for that word implies intention. I'm not sure what word to apply to Sudek, but everything that I have read and heard about him indicates that he was just a gentle man who just wanted to express himself.

In exercising that simple expression, Sudek unknowingly carved a place for himself, not only in his homeland —where he is now duly appreciated, but in the hearts of those of us who are so receptive to his brand of visual lyricism. Since he was one of the first to affect me in that way, he is at least a pioneer to me personally, in that sense.

According to a book on Sudek by Jan Rezac (Sudek, Slovik Misto Pameti, Published by Artfoto) which I bought in Prague, Sudek used 6x10.5 cm, 6x14.5 cm ("quite a lot"), 13x18 cm ("not much"), 18x24 cm ("quite a lot"), 24x30 cm ("quite a lot"), 30x40 cm —of which he said, "I'd like to use this, but it's rather difficult (don't forget his handicap of being one-armed). He also used an 1894 model of a Kodak 10x30 cm panoramic camera mainly for landscapes. He called it "the sausage". Of it, he said, "I'm trying to do still lifes with it. I've got about four". (I guess he meant four negatives, not cameras!) Sudek used smaller formats too, apparently down to 6x9 cm, but I suspect that his extensive use of LF cameras was due to the fact that they have to be used on a tripod, and therefore may have been easier to operate with one arm. Only a guess.

Lastly, Mark C. wrote a nice phrase about some of the great photographers, saying they tried to "preserve for us what they knew would disappear". Wow. That's a nice motto in general for photography, isn't it? To preserve what we know will disappear, and I'd add: to show someone else what you think is beautiful or interesting.

Go Joe! (Sudek). Vive le grand format!

[Christopher Nisperos]

Oops. Ladies and gentleman, I must confess a double boo-boo. Josef Sudek was born on March 17, 1896
and died on September 15, 1976.

Therefore, you still have plenty of time to buy candles to celebrate his birthday, and light one in a couple of days to mark his passing.

Sorry for the error. I don't regret, however, starting this thread. Very interesting so far.

Vive le grand format!

[paulr]

That's ok ... just throw another party on the 15th. are you Czech, Christopher? Are you familiar with any of the Czech and Slovak photographers doing really interesting work today?

There's a theory that there's a specific species of hallucinogenic mold that grows on grain almost exclusively in a small region of Eastern Europe ... it's been speculated that the character of Czech art has been a product of its influence. Evidence has been the strange, surrealistic mood evident in art from the region throughout the ages, but exemplified most famously in the last hundred years by Kafka and Sudek.

I have no sense of whether to believe this, but if anyone would like to send me a few loaves of Czech bread (and maybe some Slivovitz to chase it down) I'd be happy to eat it all and see if any strange things come out of my camera.

[Struan Gray]

Paul, you're looking for Ergot.

I see symbolism and a willingness to be non-literal with the camera as a characteristic of E.European photography in general. It's interesting to browse an enthusiasts gallery site like photo.net and see how the slavic names often have galleries full of stagey shots with determinist titles. On the finest of fine art side, even Boris Mikhailovich's straighter work has a strong symbolic component.

My guess is that late romanticism never quite died behind the curtain - socialist realism may be to blame - and the more subversive artists the need to misdirect the censor necessarily lead to narrative subtleties.

[paulr]

Romanticism and symbolism are definitely involved, but there's also a sense of strangeness ... a slight twist on the ideas and visual metaphors. Yes, we're seeing some escapist fantasies, as you might expect from behind anything called the iron curtain ... but the nature of these fantasies can seem particularly strange, and rooted in something that seems common to the region.

Probably just cultural, but it's more fun to think they're all tripping all the time.

[Struan Gray]

Ergot has wiped out entire villages in its time. It's why even the most barren, fuel-scarce viking and celtic settlements tended to have a grain kiln somwhere about the place. More grim than trippy.

Another theme I see surviving in E.European visual arts is the pre-romantic view of nature as inherently threatening, in a fey, half-magical sort of way. Bilibin for example seems to me to have an edgyness about landscape that western illustrators had long since got rid of in favour of the sublime or outright cutseyness. Down near Krakow is the last sizable remnant of the European wildwood. I'd love to spend some time there with an LF camera. And Kamchatka. And Carpathia. And the Lena Delta. And the summit of Ushba.

How much land does a man need again?

[Bob._3483]

Frank Beken (http://www.beken.co.uk/history.htm). IIRC he didn't switch to MF cameras until the 1960s...

[Christopher Nisperos]

You're right, Bob. Beken's work is often breathtaking. In fact, the first photograph I ever bought as an art piece was a b&w print of a huge single masted sailboat, similar to a Beken. However, for the purposes of my question Beken doesn't count because he wasn't on the continent (same reason I excluded Evans ..).

Ergot? Isn't that latin for therefore? "Cogito ergot I photograph". No? Sorry for the dumb joke.
All I know about the stuff is that it grows on bread (I think, rye), and that LSD can be derived from it. Did it effect Czech art? I doubt it. My good friends the Czechs usually don't need hallucinogins to come up with strange and creative works (see Kafka). Beer, Beckerovka or Burchak (phonetic spelling) will usually do ... sometimes in the same evening! Struan is right (if I understand him correctly): it comes down to a sort of mindset from the pre-romantic period more than anything else. You even see in the Czech manner of doing things.
About beer and bread, by the way, the Czechs have a nice saying: Beer is just liquid bread!

I don't know strictly nothing about Mikhailovich's work, but I do appreciate the Art Nouveau /notan style of Bilibin (and fellow Czech, Mucha). Sudek's work is too full of details to be considered in the same vein. I don't really see a strong influence of this art movement in his work, although he was "there", the right time at the right place in art history. Any input?

To answer paulr, no, I'm not Czech, but Californian. I currently live in Paris but I lived in Prague when the country was still called Czechoslovakia. I have great respect for the Czech people, as a whole. At the time I became familiar with several Czech photographers, many of whose names I've since forgotten (unless I see them). Truly, there is a plethora of fantastic work yet to be seen in the U.S. Too bad I don't have the money or motivation to gather and publish these works.

I also agree with Struan that "social realism" tends to kill a bit of creativity (necessarily, perhaps). But that's why it's so important for us to photograph those damned rocks and trees.
Mount Ushba notwithstanding!

[Christopher Nisperos]

I meant that Bilibin and Mucha were fellow slavs, not fellow Czechs. Also, one Czech photographer who remains in mind is Tono Stano. I'm jealous of his imagination. Take a Google at his work.

[Mark Sawyer]

"There's a theory that there's a specific species of hallucinogenic mold that grows on grain almost exclusively in a small region of Eastern Europe ... it's been speculated that the character of Czech art has been a product of its influence. Evidence has been the strange, surrealistic mood evident in art from the region throughout the ages..."

In western Europe, absinthe and laudanum were big influences on the art and literature worlds from the 1880's through the 1920's. Don't know how much it crept into the eastern European countries...

"the Czechs have a nice saying: Beer is just liquid bread!"

Beer has food value, but food has no beer value.

[Christopher Nisperos]

"the Czechs have a nice saying: Beer is just liquid bread!"

Beer has food value, but food has no beer value.

Mark,

Sorry to take a year to respond to your funny thought.

In a few days —September 15th— it will be the 30th anniversary of the death of Josef Sudek. I hope a few of us will celebrate his memory .. whether by going out and exposing a couple of sheets ... or, if you like, having a couple of Pilsner Urquel's (or your favorite beer ...preferably a pilsner 'cause it's a Czech "type")!

[Merg Ross]

For pure and simple vision using large format photography, I would include Albert Renger-Patzsch. Born in Germany in 1897, died in 1966.

[Michael Daily]

As for strange: remember Franz Kafka is from Prague. I think the "strangeness" is from the compacted cross-fertillizing nature of the "East meets West" cultures and the dark, dramatic landscape. Prague is a fascinating, disparate, moody city with many different faces living side by side. I loved being there a few years ago, and would learn Czech just to live and photograph there. My favorite area is the Spanish Quarter...
Michael

[Jim Jones]

. . . If you haven't seen Frederick Evans' work in the catherdrals, attics, and barn lofts of England, you're in for a treat. Beautifully printed in platinum, these are the most expressive architectural photographs I know of, (very different from what we automatically think of as "architectural photography" today.) Peter Henry Emerson also did some wonderful things; especially his work on the Norfolk Broads.

Eadweard Muybridge was born and died in England, although much of the work for which he is famous was done in America. He was both a pioneer and an artist.

[tim atherton]

Eadweard Muybridge was born and died in England, although much of the work for which he is famous was done in America. He was both a pioneer and an artist.

and an innovator who continues to influence people today (how many other photographers have had U2 produce a tribute to them...:-) )

[paulr]

(how many other photographers have had U2 produce a tribute to them...:-) )

good question. makes me wonder if REM ever wrote anything about eggleston. it made me happy last year to learn that eggleston used to party with the band ... michael stipe said he would drink them into the ground on a nightly basis, but eggleston admits to nothing so undignified.

[Jan_6568]

Actually Jan Bulhak was mostly using LF, namely 13x18 cm, even though sometimes he was also using medium format camera. Personally I would count him as a pioneer for two reasons: he was a pioneer of fine art photography in Poland and more importantly he was kind of pioneer in melting traditional pictorial qualities with modernistic simplicity of composition.

BTW - what kind of format Karl Blosfeldt was using? I guess also LF. I would certainly count him as a pioneer.

Jan