Still life Pictorialist
Carl Christian Heinrich Kühn was an Austrian–German photographer and photography pioneer.
Heinrich Kühn is regarded one of the forefathers of fine art photography, the movement that helped photography to establish itself as an art on its own. His photographs closely resemble impressionist paintings, with their frequent use of soft lighting and focus. Kühn was part of the pictorialist photographic movement.
Kühn mainly used the gum bichromate technique, applied in several layers, and thus allowing for previously unseen color tonalities.
Josef Sudek was a Czech photographer known for his poetic images of Prague and its surroundings. He initially studied bookbinding before becoming interested in photography.
Sudek is known for his use of the large format camera, which allowed him to create highly detailed and nuanced images. He often photographed still lifes, landscapes, and architecture, but his most iconic images are his atmospheric images of Prague, which he captured over the course of several decades.
Sudek's photography is characterized by its emphasis on light, shadow, and texture, and his images often have a dreamlike or poetic quality. He also experimented with different printing techniques, including platinum printing, which gave his photographs a soft and velvety texture.
Despite facing numerous challenges throughout his life, including losing an arm in World War I and facing political persecution during the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Today, he is considered one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, and his work is held in major collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the National Gallery in Prague.