In 2016 the History Meeting House held an outdoor exhibition and published an album of Siemaszko’s architectural and urban planning photographs (Dream of a City). Those images were primarily taken from above or afar. This time we expand the selection to include news photos, street scenes, neighbourhood moments, and domestic interiors – a fuller record of everyday life during the era. Jerzy S. Majewski, a recognized authority on Warsaw history, added commentaries providing context.
The 1950s and 60s were the most intriguing period of Siemaszko’s career. He was a tireless photojournalist for Stolica weekly and also documented Warsaw’s rebuilding process for various state institutions. It was a time when the city was gradually returning to life, despite pervasive post-war poverty, a foreign political system imposed by the Soviet Union, and isolation from the Western world. Born in Wilno (present-day Vilnius), Siemaszko was a Home Army soldier and post-war refugee building a new life in a rebuilding city. He made his way within the system to create photography and follow his passions.
He did not limit himself to completing assignments, but was on a perpetual search for new places, subjects, plans, and points of view. He would drag is heavy equipment onto rooftops and stand at the tripod waiting for ideal lighting, but would also go out on the streets and carefully study the people. In Siemaszko’s photographs they tend to feature as passersby. Automobiles (there is little doubt he was a “car guy”), along with buses, trams and lit-up neon signs, were an important element of his vision of a dynamic and modern metropolis.
Zbyszko Siemaszko: Warsaw’s Photographer presents 200 of his photographs from that era, along with several hundred slides and selected Stolica covers.
It is the first exhibition to present such a broad and comprehensive cross-section of his works drawn from the collections of the National Digital Archives and the FORUM Polish Photography Agency.
We want this exhibition to present Zbyszko Siemaszko, often simply seen as post-war Warsaw’s “chronicler,” as a true artist of documentary urban photography.
