Saying Josef Koudelka: Diaries | Aperture

New York, April 14, 2026—Over the course of fifty-plus years, Josef Koudelka (born in Moravia, Czech Republic, 1938) has stored sixty-nine journals. Distilled now into one richly illustrated quantity, Josef Koudelka: Diaries affords a glance contained in the thoughts of the iconoclastic Czech photographer famend for his life in exile and a profession that has included legendary initiatives on the Roma, the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Prague, and the devastating affect people have had on the panorama.

Facsimile pages from the diaries, together with photos by the photographer, together with self portraits, lend the quantity an immediacy and authenticity. As curator Tomáš Pospěch writes, “Koudelka’s diaries are a ‘cookbook’ of classic photography. He associated with the most renowned photographers. His notes sum up his rich experience, including work created with the now vanishing technology of analog black and white photography. His remarks, quips, and stories reappear, just as he repeatedly made resolutions, affirmed the rules he had adopted, and recalled earlier events and dreams.” Revealed all through the e book are Koudelka’s ideas on photographers, corresponding to Henri Cartier-Bresson, and editors, curators, and buddies, together with Robert Delpire and Anna Fárová, together with notes on a few of his most generally circulated photos.

Josef Koudelka: Diaries is developed in collaboration with the Josef Koudelka Foundation. The publication has been supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic. Aperture additionally needs to thank Elizabeth and Mark Levine for his or her contribution to this venture. Josef Koudelka: Diaries is revealed by Aperture and out there at aperture.org.

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Josef Koudelka (born in Moravia, Czechoslovakia, 1938; naturalized French, 1987) started his profession as an aeronautical engineer earlier than turning fulltime to images within the late Sixties. In 1968 he photographed the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1969, he was anonymously awarded the Overseas Press Club’s Robert Capa Gold Medal for the pictures that had been revealed with the initials P.P. (Prague photographer). Koudelka left Czechoslovakia looking for political asylum, in 1970, and shortly thereafter joined Magnum Photos. His awards embrace the Prix Nadar, Grand Prix National de la Photographie, HCB Award, Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, Medal of Merit from the Czech Republic, and being named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. Significant exhibitions of his work have been held on the Museum of Modern Art and International Center of Photography, New York; Hayward Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Koudelka’s books embrace Gypsies (1975), Exiles (1988), Black Triangle (1994), Chaos (1999), Invasion 68: Prague (2008), Wall (2013), Ruins (2020), and Next (by Melissa Harris, 2023). He relies in Paris and Prague.

Tomáš Pospěch (choice and postscript) is curator of images on the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague the place he oversees the Josef Koudelka Collection. Since 1997 he has taught on the Institute of Creative Photography, Silesian University, Opava. He is the writer of greater than sixty books, together with Fotografie 1938–2000 v recenzích, textech, dokumentech (Czech images, 1938–2000, in evaluations, articles, and paperwork, 2010). He has written about Koudelka’s work for publications corresponding to Returning (2017), Theatre (2020), Deníky (2021), and Ruins (2024). He has organized quite a few exhibitions, together with Czech Documentary Photography (with Vladimír Birgus, 2009), Photographs of Czech Society (2009), and Ruins (2024).

Derek Paton (translator) was born in Canada. He holds a BA in worldwide relations from the University of Toronto and an MA in East European space research from the University of London. He first visited Czechoslovakia in 1985, returning in 1989 as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, Washington, DC, with the nice fortune to witness the Velvet Revolution, and since that point has served as a translator from Czech to English.

Marzia Paton (née Ferrari) (translator) was born in Prague to a Russian mom and an Italian father. She holds an MA in Russian research and training from Charles University, Prague. Much of her translation work has been from Russian to Czech and Czech to Russian, but additionally Italian, and Czech to English. Among works on artwork, structure, and music, a lot of the Patons’ translations relate to images, together with the Fototorst and Josef Sudek sequence for Torst in addition to annual catalogs of the Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University and works for the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague; Prague Spring Festival; National Gallery of Canada; Art Gallery of Ontario; and Leica Gallery Prague. The Patons have offered translations for Josef Koudelka (2002), Invasion 68: Prague (2008), Returning (2018), Koudelka: Theatre (2021), Josef Koudelka: Next (2023), and Ruins (2024).

Aleš Najbrt (designer) studied typography and e book design with Jan Solpera on the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design, Prague. He was an artwork director of the influential Czech weekly Reflex and founding father of his personal journal, Raut. With Pavel Lev, he cofounded Studio Najbrt. For his movie and theater posters, books, and different works, he acquired the Grand Prix on the seventeenth Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno in 1996, a Bronze Prize from the Tokyo Type Directors Club, 5 Czech Lion Awards, and the Czech Grand Design 2007 award. He designed Josef Koudelka: Next, a visible biography by Melissa Harris (2023), Invasion 68: Prague (2008), Theatre (2022), Returning (2018), Deníky (2021), the Czech version of Diaries and several other others.

Melissa Harris (editor) is editor at giant of Aperture. She server as editor in chief of Aperture journal from 2000 to 2012, edited dozens of Aperture books, and authored A Wild Life: A Visual Biography of Photographer Michael Nichols (2017) and Josef Koudelka: Next (2023). Harris teaches at New York University’s Photography and Imaging Department at Tisch, and infrequently at Yale University, and is a trustee of the John Cage Trust. She has curated images exhibitions all through the United States and Europe at venues that embrace Visa Pour l’Image, Perpignan, France; Philadelphia Museum of Art and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Villa Pignatelli, Naples; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; and Milano Triennale.

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