Josef Koudelka was born in Czechoslovakia the year Germany annexed the Sudetenland. His childhood was overshadowed by Nazi occupation. He lived under the postwar communist regime, and watched Soviet tanks rolled into Prague in 1968.
His vivid photos of the Prague Spring led to a twenty year period of exile, wandering Europe as a stateless person, sleeping rough, and photographing vanishing worlds.
His work is permeated by feelings of tragedy but the man himself is surprisingly optimistic, seizing on the present moment while appreciating the beauty of life.
I was intrigued by his wandering artist’s existence. And so I reached out to his biographer to get a sense of the man behind the ascetic legend.
Melissa Harris is the author of Josef Koudelka Next. She is editor-at-large of the Aperture Foundation, and was editor-in-chief of Aperture magazine for over a decade. She’s edited over forty books for Aperture, and has curated photography exhibits throughout the United States and Europe.
You can see Koudelka’s work on Instagram and on the website of the Josef Koudelka Foundation.
Josef Koudelka: Next is co-published by Aperture and Magnum Foundation and is available at aperture.org/books.
We spoke about Koudelka’s wandering life, his remarkable network of friends, and his interest in capturing the end of things.
These are the books we mentioned in the podcast:
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