Josef Sudek’s Prague Panorama (Czech: Praha Panoramatická) captures the Czech capital’s essence through 284 black-and-white panoramic photographs, created with an old Kodak Panorama camera. At this stage in his career, Sudek had already gained recognition as “The Poet of Prague,” known for his deep connection with the city’s landscapes and light. This project encapsulates Sudek's enduring fascination with Prague, from its historical center to its outskirts, offering a visual ode to the city he loved and immortalized throughout his life.
Emerging after World War II, when Prague was rebuilding its identity amidst a rapidly modernizing Europe, Sudek’s work provides a counter-narrative to mechanized urban transformation. His photographs explore the coexistence of human history and nature within the urban setting. Drawing from his personal experiences, including the loss of his arm during World War I, Sudek approached photography as both an artistic and meditative practice, using his panoramic images to preserve fleeting light and subtle atmospheres.
Sudek’s meticulous process involved revisiting locations multiple times, waiting for the ideal interplay of light and subject. The project uniquely integrates Prague’s grandeur with its understated corners, capturing iconic landmarks such as Charles Bridge alongside unassuming suburban landscapes. This egalitarian approach to composition reflects a democratic artistic vision, treating all subjects with equal reverence.
Visually, the panoramic format lends itself to sweeping compositions with a cinematic quality, encompassing up to 140-degree views. Sudek’s deliberate use of the Kodak Panorama camera created an almost tactile sense of depth and space. The images in the project feature a harmonious tonal range, soft gradations, and subtle contrasts, qualities inherent to Sudek’s original photographs. For the book, these attributes were faithfully preserved and enhanced through rotogravure printing, which brought out the photographs’ lush textures. His strategic use of distortion, caused by the lens swing mechanism, imbues the scenes with a sense of dynamism and perspective rarely found in traditional panoramas.
Josef Sudek’s Prague Panorama has been widely cited in photobook histories; its visibility grew through exhibitions (including Sudek’s first major U.S. presentation in 1968) and an Odeon facsimile reprint in 1992. In the same period, Sudek received the state titles Artist of Merit (1961) and Order of Work (1966), and institutional holdings and reprints have supported continued study and circulation of the work.
