Jan Saudek - Photographs 1987-1997

 

Jan Saudek - Photographs 1987-1997

This is a small (A5ish) format from Taschen which acts as a colour "best of" of Saudek's work. Saudek was quite a tortured artist, whose personal and professional life were both "complicated" to say the least, and this is reflected in his photography, not so much because of the frequent nudity, but because of the way it's depicted. That said, from a purely formal point of view, Saudek (who was also trained as a painter) paints his black and white prints, and that gives his images an absolutely surreal look that I have not seen anywhere else. This small book is a good entry point, but if you like his work, the images are a bit too small and the selection a bit too narrow. Taschen has a bigger and thicker book.