With a single photograph, an artist can send a message to the world.
Whether political or in admiration, the artist has incredible power with his medium, even if he chooses to make a quiet statement, one which simply suggests pleasure or whispers beauty.
Such an artist was Josef Sudek, a Czechoslovakian photographer who has been titled the "Poet of Prague."
Sudek's simple yet evocative photographs, currently on display at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, are all in black and white and have the ability to sneak up on the viewer long after he has viewed them and remind him of their simple beauty and thoughtful execution.
"Poet With A Camera" is being shown in the Trustman galleries, a two-room carpeted space enclosed by glass doors. The galleries are therefore quiet and less populated, adding the solitude and quiet nature of Sudek's art.
Sudek's story is an original one. After losing his right arm in World War I, all that Sudek had to manipulate his large format camera were his teeth and his left hand. In order to change the film in his large Kodak panoramic camera, he had to encase himself in a three-layer black cloth sack to ensure total darkness.
These unusual circumstances, as well as the upsetting World War II, led Sudek to turn inward and create careful pieces, mostly of serene, still events like still lives, portraits, window views, and images of light.
His pieces include series of private compositions showing his favorite sites in Prague, like the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle, as well as images of his studio, which he entitles "Labyrinth."
His studio is shown to be a cluttered space filled with papers, books, cups, candles, and shells -- the latter are props used for his still lives. The two "Labyrinth" images displayed -- one from 1960, the other from 1969 -- show his studio as somewhat of an open closet space filled to the brim in which he would work and collect unique objects for his work.
In contrast, the series of images taken from his studio window show perhaps the polar opposite of these cluttered compositions.
These images, which are scattered throughout the exhibition, highlight Sudek's interest in mysterious imagery and still lives. Sudek would place small props before his studio window and photograph them in different times of day and in different light sources.
"A Dark Rose in an Engraved Glass" (1954) is an elegant, linear composition. In this image, a long, dark rose, sleek and slim, stands in a tall glass with a linear design imprinted on it. The long stem mimics the long lines upon the glass, creating a harmony of lines before a blurry, out of focus background scene from his garden just outside the studio window.
Other compositions also show his great concern for the subject and an appreciation of a simple scene, like "The Coming of Spring" (1968). This print shows a mess of barren branches in soft focus against a grey washed sky. Entwined within are young, newly growing twigs and branches with icicle-like buds. Only some of the stems are in focus, and seem to surface from the chaos as an allegory for spring emerging from the gray confusion of winter.
"Poet With a Camera" also focuses on Sudek's friendship with Sonja Bullaty, a Holocaust survivor and former assistant to Sudek, who moved to New York in 1946 after working with Sudek in Czechoslovakia.
Bullaty, a photographer herself, took great care of the letters and photographs Sudek sent her from his studio in Prague. She and her husband, Angelo Lomeo, worked to promote Sudek's work in America through exhibitions and a published book.
Sudek's interest in quiet themes and soft tones shines through in this small, placid exhibition. Scenes of the outdoors and household items dominate, but are interspersed with unexpected images, like the beautiful "Nude Portrait" (1951-54).
This tasteful nude shows a young woman looking down and away from the camera; her white skin is bathed in soft, diffused light, highlighting the angles and forms of her body.
"Poet With a Camera" provides the viewer with a tour of mid-twentieth century Prague through Sudek's wide-view panoramas, as well as a tour of the artist's personal life through his studio scenes and portraiture. The exhibition is a welcome refuge from the often teeming MFA and offers the viewer a peaceful and contemplative experience.
