Josef Koudelka
Limestone
Éditions de la Martinière, Paris, France, 2001
first edition
dimensions 25.7 × 34.5 cm, hardcover in a carton box
language French / German / English
ISBN 2-7324-2838-8
ARTISTS
Josef Koudelka
He began photographing at a very young age. At only 12 years old through small jobs he managed to raise the money needed to purchase his first camera a 6x6 in bakelite. Without giving up photography, he decided to study aeronautical engineering. At university he meets photographer and critic Jiri Jenícek, who encourages him to show his work at the Semafor Theater in Prague. He graduated in 1961 and worked as an aeronautical engineer for 6 years before deciding to devote himself entirely to photography. His photographic testimony to the end of the Prague Spring is well known. In August 1968, awakened by a phone call he rushed into the streets as Warsaw Pact military forces entered Prague to suppress Czech reformism. Koudelka's negatives left Prague following clandestine channels. Thanks to the Magnum Photos agency, they were published in The Sunday Times, anonymously, marked only with the initials P.P., initials for Prague Photographer, in fear of retaliation against him and his family.
He began photographing at a very young age. At only 12 years old through small jobs he managed to raise the money needed to purchase his first camera a 6x6 in bakelite. Without giving up photography, he decided to study aeronautical engineering. At university he meets photographer and critic Jiri Jenícek, who encourages him to show his work at the Semafor Theater in Prague. He graduated in 1961 and worked as an aeronautical engineer for 6 years before deciding to devote himself entirely to photography. His photographic testimony to the end of the Prague Spring is well known. In August 1968, awakened by a phone call he rushed into the streets as Warsaw Pact military forces entered Prague to suppress Czech reformism. Koudelka's negatives left Prague following clandestine channels. Thanks to the Magnum Photos agency, they were published in The Sunday Times, anonymously, marked only with the initials P.P., initials for Prague Photographer, in fear of retaliation against him and his family.