Josef Koudelka - NOW

A new edition of Josef Koudelka’s acclaimed photographs of Greek and Roman ruins in the Mediterranean 

“The monumental fragments of the past recorded by Josef Koudelka through his singular vision give us a sense of the physical accomplishments of classical antiquity. As Koudelka has observed, ruins are not the past, but the future.”

— Seán Hemingway (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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.

Pictures of Josef Koudelka will figure in the exhibition Across Wine-Dark Seas: Art and Identity beyond Ancient Greece at The Met in New York from 20 December 2026 to 11 April 2027.