Gypsies, lavishly printed in a unique quadratone mix by artisanal printer Gerhard Steidl, rekindles the energy and astonishment of this foundational body of work by master photographer Josef Koudelka.

This stunning new edition offers an expanded look at Koudelka’s seminal series Cik´ni (Czech for Gypsies)—109 photographs of Roma society taken between 1962 and 1971 in then-Czechoslovakia (Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia), Romania, Hungary, France, and Spain. The design and edit for this volume revisits the artist’s original intention for the work, and is based on a maquette originally prepared in 1968 by Koudelka and graphic designer Milan Kopriva. Koudelka intended to publish the work in Prague, but was forced to flee Czechoslovakia, landing eventually in Paris. In 1975, Robert Delpire, Aperture, and Koudelka collaborated to publish Gitans, la fin du voyage (Gypsies, in the English-language edition), a selection of sixty photographs taken in various Roma settlements around East Slovakia.

Gypsies includes more than thirty never-before-published images and a new text by Roma scholar and sociologist Will Guy, who also wrote the essay for the 1975 edition. Guy contributes a new, in-depth analysis of the condition of the Roma today, including the most recent upheavals in France and Europe.

Josef Koudelka (born in Moravia, Czech Republic, 1938) is the recipient of the Prix Nadar, Grand Prix National de la Photographie, Grand Prix Cartier-Bresson, and Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. Major 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; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. In 2007, Aperture published his bestselling self-titled monograph, and in 2008 released the highly anticipated Invasion 68: Prague. He is a member of Magnum Photos and is currently based in Paris.

Will Guy (essay) has published widely on issues regarding Roma and is currently a research fellow in sociology at the University of Bristol, UK.