The exhibition will showcase unknown photographs of St. Vitus Cathedral by Josef Sudek

Prague - This year's two round anniversaries related to the life of the famous Czech photographer Josef Sudek will be commemorated by an exhibition in his former studio in Prague on Újezd. The space currently functions as an exhibition hall focused on the presentation of photography. From June 29 to August 30, the exhibition titled In the Shadows of the Temple will showcase Sudek's previously unexhibited photographs from Prague's St. Vitus Cathedral, reported ČTK Jitka Tkadlecová on behalf of PPF Art, which operates the Josef Sudek Studio.

The exhibition, organized for the 120th anniversary of Sudek's birth (1896) and the 40th anniversary of his death (1976), will present images from the collection of the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. The photographs were taken by Josef Sudek from the late 1930s until the end of World War II. However, this does not include the well-known series of images of the cathedral under construction from the 1920s; rather, it features less known and less studied photographs from the wartime Protectorate period, as stated by curators Vojtěch Lahoda and Katarína Mašterová.

During that time, Sudek extensively and continuously photographed the cathedral for the purpose of a pictorial monograph. The book was never published; however, some images from the series of St. Vitus Cathedral were published in Sudek's pictorial publications about Prague Castle and Prague from 1945 to 1948.

The themes of the photographs from this series include views of St. Vitus Cathedral as a whole and in detail. They are images of interiors and exteriors, architectural details, the church's decoration, furniture, and inventory, including items from the church treasury, in numerous variations and test positives.

For the exhibition at the Josef Sudek Studio, the curators selected a collection of approximately 30 original photographs. The images from the interior of the cathedral and its details capture Sudek's precise technique, the atmosphere of the place, and the author's ability to convey an extremely intimate message about the war-muted monument.

The double anniversary of Josef Sudek is also commemorated by the Museum of Applied Arts, which owns a large part of the photographer's estate. For the Museum of Cubism in Celetná Street, an exhibition of his previously unpublished photographs of modern architecture has been prepared. The Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences also holds a collection of photographs by Josef Sudek, which was donated by the photographer's sister Božena Sudková on the recommendation of photography theorist and popularizer of Sudek's work Anna Fárová. The institute received approximately 13,500 negatives and 6,000 positives of photographs by Josef Sudek as a gift.