Josef Sudek Czechoslovakian, b. Austria-Hungary, 1896-1976 One of the best known Czechoslovakian photographers of the 20th century, Josef Sudek was born in Kolín nad Labem, a small town near Prague. In his youth he was apprenticed to a bookbinder but, following the loss of his right arm during World War I, took up photography as a profession. Sudek became a member of Prague's Bohemian Amateur Photography Association in 1921 and the following year entered the State School of Graphic Arts in Prague, where he studied photography (1922-24). In 1924 Sudek and his friend, photographer Jaromír Funke, joined Adolf Schneeberger in founding the Czech Photographic Society ( sa). Sudek worked in Prague all his life, opening a studio there in the 1920s. Among his earliest photographs were a series of soft-focus views of the final stages of construction of Saint Vitus Cathedral. Over the next 50 years, he photographed familiar surroundings, producing hundreds of images of the streets and buildings of Prague and objects in his garden and studio, including a series of photographs taken through his studio window. He also made many landscape pictures, photographing in the great Mioní Forest Preserve. He also was successful as an advertising and commercial photographer. Beginning in the 1920s, Sudek took part in many exhibitions; his work has also been featured in several one-person shows, including retrospectives at George Eastman House, Rochester (1974), the International Center of Photography, New York (1977), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1990). He was the first photographer honored with the title Artist of Merit (1961) by the Czech government, which also awarded him the Order of Work (1966). M.M.