Photograph by Julii Pirotte taken in Marseille in 1943. Photo courtesy of JHI
The Jewish Historical Institute is hosting a broad exhibition of photographs by the fascinating Polish photographer known for her documentation of resistance fighters and everyday people in occupied France or post-war Poland
Faces and Hands is not only an exhibition of exceptional photography, it also pieces together some of the pieces of Pirotte's extraordinary life and personality. She was a brave photographer who wasn't afraid to approach even the most dire of subjects - some of her most striking series is a reportage of about 100 photographs on the pogrom of Jews that took place in Kielce on the 4th of, 1946 and the transport of Jews to Auschwitz during the war. She donated several dozen photographs to the Jewish Historical Institute before her death in 2000 and these form the basis of the exhibition. Most of these pictures date back to the 1940s and 1950s in Marseilles during the war, where Pirotte lived and participated in the local resistance movement. The photographs range from portraits of everyday people from France and Poland to celebrated figures like Edith Piaf and Pablo Picasso.
Pirotte loved recording the everyday life of ordinary people which she did with great intuition, whether in occupied France or in postwar Poland, when the country was recovering from the war. Her art speaks for itself especially in portraits that show faces and hands of the portrayed people, the latter of which occupy an equally important place in the photos. Portraits of such celebrities as Edith Piaf and Pablo Picasso are the greatest attraction of the exhibition. As the photographer herself once said, "I like to photograph people, especially young people - children. I like sadness, it's more photogenic than joy".
Julia Pirotte was born Gina Diament in 1907 in Końskowola, a village in southeastern Poland, into an impoverished Jewish family. In 1934 she emigrated to Belgium where she married Jean Pirotte and obtained Belgian citizenship. There, she studied journalism and photography, and produced her first photo reportages on workers’ movement. Soon after the German invasion on Belgium in 1940, Pirotte emigrated to southern France. There she played an important role in the local resistance movement. She travelled around Europe both during and after the war, documenting the painful reality that it brought on to everyday people, young and old. Her works have been exhibited at museums and art galleries all over the world, e.g. in Stockholm, London, the 3rd edition of Photography and Visual Arts Biennale in Liège in Belgium, and at the International Center of Photography in New York in 1984.
Krystyna Dąbrowska, in the Faces and Hands catalogue, emphasises the senstivity and the art of Pirotte's documentary photography, exemplified by the way she subtly manipulated the images, experimented with framing and texture. Curator of the exhibition at the Jewish Historical Institute, Teresa Śmiechowska, says that
Julia Pirotte's photography is the fruit of dedication and devotion, more a mission than an extraordinary skill. Most of the heroes in her photographs are looking straight into the camera - you can see how the author struggled with her commitment. Pirotte is in the company of heroic photographers, for whom 'the face of another' means a lot more than the face we merely see. Many of her photographs are the only souvenir of those who, as children in the camp at Bompard in Marseille, had not had the chance to grow up. Thanks to Pirotte's photographs, they did not vanish altogether, as their lives had.
The exhibition, held at the Jewish Cultural Institute between the 16th of February through the 29th of May, 2012, is accompanied by an album of selected photographs from the exhibition.
Curator: Teresa Śmiechowska.
Culture.pl is a media patron for the exhibiton.
Jewish Historical Institute
ul.Tłomackie 3/5
Warszawa
www.jewishinstitute.org.pl
Source: JHI (ŻIH)