NOW

by Josef Koudelka (Photographer), Seán Hemingway, Gilles A. Tiberghien

For more than twenty years, Czech-French photographer Josef Koudelka (b. 1938) traveled through the Mediterranean, visiting places such as Greece, Italy, Libya, Syria, and Turkey to photograph more than two hundred archaeological sites. His stark and mesmerizing panoramic photographs take the viewer to Carthage, Delphi, Petra, Pompeii, and other ancient locations, including sites now greatly altered or destroyed due to recent conflict.

NOW is a monument to architectural and cultural history, as well as to civilizations long past.

Genres: Photography

204 pages, Hardcover

First published May 28, 2020

About the author

Josef Koudelka was born in Czechoslovakia in 1938. He began his career as an aeronautical engineer, and started photographing gypsies in his spare time in 1962, before turning full-time to photography in the late 1960s. In 1968 Koudelka photographed the Soviet invasion of Prague, publishing his photographs under the initials P.P. (Prague photographer). In 1969, he was anonymously awarded the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Gold Medal for the photographs. Koudelka left Czechoslovakia seeking political asylum in 1970, and shortly thereafter he joined Magnum Photos.

In 1975 his first book, Gypsies, was published by Aperture, and subsequent titles include Exiles (1988), Chaos (1999), Invasion 68: Prague (2008), and Wall (2013) and, most recently Ruines (2020). Koudelka has won major awards, such as the Prix Nadar (1978), Grand Prix National de la Photographie (1989), Grand Prix Cartier-Bresson (1991), and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (1992).

Exhibitions of his work have been held at The Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography, New York; Hayward Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; and Museum of Decorative Arts and the National Gallery, Prague. In 2012, he was named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. He is currently based in Paris and Prague.