STEFANIA GURDOWA – Negatives are to be stored

In the attic of a tenement house in Dębica, a little town in southern Poland, more than a thousand badly damaged glass photo plates were discovered. Most of them were expressive portraits of unknown persons who lived in the area between 1918 and 1939.

At first, the author of the photographs seemed unknown, although the photographer's initials appeared on the plates. But as soon as the Imago Mundi Foundation began its research, an extraordinary figure started to emerge: a woman who was independent, consistent and gifted, who worked and lived away from big cultural centres, making portraits ordered by her neighbours: shopkeepers, craftsmen, peasants, priests or Jews.

The plates are chiefly sets of pairs. Where does the doubling come from? Most likely it was not a consciously made artistic choice but a decision out of ordinary sense of thriftiness and the will to spare photographic material. However, today, the effect of the sparing routine is open to various interpretations, fantastic stories, and a reflection on relations between the persons who were unintentionally paired on the same plate. It is a fascinating work, all the more so because it also represents a group portrait of a certain community. A community that was soon to be annihilated during the Second World War.    

What do we know about the author of these photographs? Stefania Gurdowa née Czerny was born in 1888 in Bochnia, a little mining town in southern Poland, back then within the boundaries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her father was the bandmaster of the local Saline Orchestra. She could play the zither but decided to become a professional photographer. Between 1921 and 1937, in the era when Poland began to rebuild its statehood, Gurdowa would run a provincial independent photographic studio. In those times, it was not so obvious for a woman to take on a profession like that. However, she would even employ male assistants.

Her marriage broke down. The photographer took with her only her daughter Zosia and a piano. In the late 1930s, she found herself in Silesia. During the Nazi occupation, she worked as hired staff at her own studio confiscated by the Germans. Her daughter and granddaughter Basia escaped to France passing through Austria. In 1942, Stefania was imprisoned in Auschwitz, where she survived until the camp's liberation.

After the war, Gurdowa decided to make a new start and, obviously, opened yet another photographic studio. Her customers do remember fresh flowers in her cold rented apartment studio as well as... an all-season Christmas tree that was her favourite prop to photograph children at. 

She managed to find her daughter and granddaughter via the Red Cross. Basia returned to Poland. Her granny would take care of her for a dozen or so years. Today Stefania Gurdowa's granddaughter leads her artistic activities in Paris. 

The outstanding photographer died in 1968. After her death, the apartment was emptied. Gurdowa's huge collection of photographs and photo plates was dumped. What is left is only a fraction of her early work. A question remains unanswered: why was the glass photo plate collection hidden in the wall of her Dębica studio? Was it Stefania Gurdowa's conscious decision? As a responsible professional, she knew well that "negatives were to be stored".  

Text by Agnieszka Sabor

Translated by Ireneusz Socha

Stefania Gurdowa NEGATIVES ARE TO BE STORED

www.gurdowa.pl

1^st-29^th May 2010 / Red Barn Gallery

43b Rosemary Street, Belfast, North Ireland

opening: 1^st May 2010, 6 pm  

Curators: Andrzej Kramarz, Agnieszka Sabor

Organisers: Fundacja Imago Mundi, Instytut Adama Mickiewicza

Partner: The Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum in Krakow

POLSKA! YEAR is a cultural programme coordinated by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw, comprising over 200 projects that present the most interesting achievements of Polish culture to the British public in the fields of visual arts, theatre, music, film and literature.
www.PolskaYear.pl

The exhibition has been organised by the Imago Mundi Foundation, the Seweryn Udziela Ethnographic Museum in Kraków and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw as part of POLSKA! YEAR

.