From the ruins - photography after the war
Almost her entire photographic output was lost in a fire during the war. The earliest preserved collection is her record of Warsaw in ruins. The strong symbolic and emotional content of the photographs makes them distinct from other documentary photographs from the period. Iconic shots include the Madonna of Warsaw and images of the deserted interiors of ruined buildings. Seventeen works from the series were included in the exhibition Warszawa oskarża! / Warsaw Accuses!. A large part of this archive is in the collections of the Historical Museum of Warsaw.
Towards the end of the 1945, Chrząszczowa documented the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp and the cities of Wrocław, Jelenia Góra and Kłodzko. Having returned to Warsaw, she worked as a photographer up till the mid-1970s, for the Polish Press Agency and the Foto-Service studio in 8 Marszałkowska St. headed by Kazimiera Funkiewiczowa, as well as for the Exhibitions and Fairs Company, where she took extra commissions as a retoucher.
Chrząszczowa also ran a photographic studio at the Faculty of Polish Architecture at Warsaw Polytechnic from 1953 to 1974. The extensive body of her architecture shots in the institution's collection testifies to the fact that she was not interested in photography exclusively as a visual aid for lecturers and students, but also in capturing obscure alleys, backyards and the outskirts. It was a period during which Chrząszczowa made photographs of contemporary architecture that are characterised by both documentary and artistic qualities.
Absorbed by her professional practice, Chrząszczowa rarely exhibited her works. Her photographs were included in such albums as Sześcioletni plan odbudowy Warszawy / The Six-Year Plan for the Reconstruction of Warsaw (1950), Ogrody polskie / Polish Gardens, by Gerard Ciołek (1954), MDM (1955), Sandomierz (1956), Zamki śląskie / Silesian Castles, by Bohdan Guerquin (1957), Architektura drewniana w Polsce / Wooden Architecture in Poland, by Witold Krassowski (1961). She also published texts in the magazines Stolica, Architektura and Kobieta. Issue 15/1949 of the latter featured her poem Ulica Miła / Miła Street commemorating the drama of the Warsaw ghetto.
Some of Chrząszczowa’s photographs were published under the pseudonym “Stefan”, which she also used as her logo when submitting works to contests. She was a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers from 1952. She died in Warsaw in 1979.
Author: Dorota Jarecka.
The text and reproductions are courtesy of the Archeology of Photography Foundation; January 2011.
Source: www.archeologiafotografii.pl