Josef Koudelka – Nationality Doubtful

This retrospective catalog features vintage prints as well as recent, unpublished work by internationally acclaimed photographer Josef Koudelka (b. 1938). A leading member of the photo agency Magnum, co-founded by his close friend Henri Cartier-Bresson, Koudelka has been a legend since the publication of his unforgettable eyewitness photographs taken during the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet-led troops in 1968. In addition to Invasion and Exiles, Koudelka’s most ambitious project, Gypsies, is featured with the complete set of twenty-two prints first exhibited in 1967. Koudelka’s impressive imagery is accompanied here by five essays that provide a thorough understanding of and appreciation for this outstanding artist, willfully independent and reclusive despite his renown.

Matthew S. Witkovsky is the Richard and Ellen Sandor Chair and Curator, department of photography, at the Art Institute of Chicago. Amanda Maddox is assistant curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Stuart Alexander is a vice president at Christie’s in New York and an independent scholar and curator. Gilles A. Tiberghien is a professor of aesthetics at the University of Paris.