Exposing Wounds: Traces of Trauma in Post-War Polish Photography

38 
 
photographers, who saw the mechanical properties of the camera as better suited to 
representing the fast-paced modern industrial world. Nonetheless, Pictorialist imagery 
continued to be utilised as a signifier for artistic photography for several decades and 
indeed flourished in the 1920s and into the 1930s in Poland. 
After the war, support of Pictorialist photography did not lose momentum, and Bułhak 
continued to be an influential figure.
19
 In fact, the art historian Magdalena Wróblewska 
has retrospectively commented that, after 1945 “Pictorialism was the only established and 
legitimate aesthetics in photography.”
20
 The persistence of a Pictorialist aesthetic was 
aided by Bułhak’s persuasive rhetoric, articulated in numerous articles and texts that he 
authored, and it received institutional support through organisations such as ZPAF and 
the Polskiego Towarzystwa Fotograficznego [Polish Photographic Society] (PTF). In fact, 
Bułhak dominated the post-war photographic milieu in more ways than one. The 
photographer and writer Wojciech Nowicki recounted how a particular photograph 
adorned the wall of a regional photography association in Gliwice, in southern Poland: 
“Over the heads of the members, all of them neatly labelled, looms a portrait of the 
Founding Father: Jan Bułhak in all his glory, in a fur cap and a fur collar. There’s no need 
to label him.”
21 
All regional photographic associations hung Bułhak’s portrait in their 
premises. This “heavy burden” made it difficult for photographers to distance themselves 
from the tradition.
22
  
Perhaps this return to a pre-war aesthetic also served a useful psychological function. 
Denial is a common psychological defence against trauma, and at a time when Poland and 
its people had experienced an unprecedented series of shattering events, the immediate 
post-war return to a popular pre-war mode of photography could be read as a refusal to 
acknowledge the traumas of the recent past, and suggests a desire to establish a reassuring 
                                                      
19
 For details of Bułhak’s influence see, amongst others, Jerzy Lewczyński, Jerzy Lewczyński “Archeologia 
Fotografii”: Prace z lat 1941-2005 [Jerzy Lewczyński ‘Archaeology of Photography’: Work from the years 
1941-2005], exhibition catalogue (Wreśnia: Kropka, 2005); Adam Mazur, ed. Nowi Dokumentaliści [The 
New Documentalists], exhibition catalogue (Warszawa: Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej, 2006); Laura 
Hamilton ed. Polish Perceptions: Ten Contemporary Photographers, 1977-88, exhibition catalogue 
(Glasgow: Collins Gallery, 1988). 
20
 Magdalena Wróblewska in Schlabs poszukujący: fotografia z lat 1952-1957 [Schlabs - the seeking one: 
photography from 1952-1957], eds., Dorota  uczak and Magdalena Wróblewska (Poznań: Fundacja 9/12 
Art Space, 2011), 40-41.  
21
 Wojciech Nowicki, Jerzy Lewczyński: pamięć obrazu [Jerzy Lewczyński: memory of the image] 
(Gliwice: Muzeum, 2012), 254. 
22
 Ibid. 

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39 
 
sense of continuity in spite of these events. However, certain photographers were intent 
on exploring new directions and attempted to overthrow this ‘heavy burden.’ 
NOWOCZESNA FOTOGRAFIKA POLSKA [Modern Polish Photography] (1948) 
The following year, Zbigniew Dłubak organised a very different exhibition of 
photography at the Klub młodych artystów i naukowców [Club of Young Artists and 
Scientists] (KMAiN) in Warsaw. Nowoczesna Fotografika Polska [Modern Polish 
Photography] ran from September to October 1948, with the title already signalling 
Dłubak’s intention to break with the past and explore new possibilities for image making. 
The exhibition can retrospectively be understood as an important moment for 
photography, promising the first manifestation of modern tendencies specific to 
photography in the newly constituted Republic of Poland. Dłubak later stated that the 
exhibition “was conceived as a broad demonstration of attitudes opposing tradition” and 
that it “testified to the need to look for new solutions.”
23
 Dłubak consciously 
differentiated his show from the previous year’s manifestation of art photography: he 
staged his exhibition at KMAiN in Warsaw, a meeting point for young radical avant-
garde artists, rather than in an established national museum, and the show was supported 
by the Polskie Towarzystwo Fotograficzne [Polish Photographic Society] rather than 
Stowarzyszenie Miłośników Fotografii [Association of Photographic Enthusiasts]. 
Furthermore the cover of Dłubak’s exhibition catalogue was markedly different; heraldic 
crests and symbolic eagles were eliminated in favour of an abstract design of radiating 
circles, ink spots and lines resembling an automatic drawing [I.5].
24
 
Dłubak provided a text for the catalogue, citing a passage from his Z rozmyślań o 
fotografice [Reflections on Photography] published earlier that year in the journal Świat 
Fotografii [World of Photography].
25
 References to altars and holy bread are eliminated, 
replaced by Dłubak’s ruminations on the photograph’s connection to the material world 
and the ways in which this connection could be transformed. Dłubak suggested that 
previous attempts at photographic artistry have been “treated only as a kind of 
                                                      
23
 Zbigniew Dłubak, “Introduction,” in Edward Hartwig: Fotografika, exhibition catalogue (Warsaw: 
Zacheta, 1972), n.p. 
24
 White crowned eagles have been used for centuries as a symbol of Poland. For a more detailed discussion 
on the symbol of the White Eagle, see Jan Kubik, The Power of Symbols Against Symbols of Power 
(Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994).  
25
 Zbigniew Dłubak, “Z rozmyślań o fotografice’ in Nowoczesna Fotografika Polska” [Modern Polish 
Photography], exhibition catalogue (Warszawa: Klub Młodych Artystów i Naukowców, 1948), (n.p.). Also 
published in Świat Fotografii, no.10 (1948): 2. 

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