photo: Gerald Howson Archives / History Meeting House
Arriving in Poland for a photo assignment in 1959, Gerald Howson was working for Queen magazine - when he returned, the Polish Embassy in London called his work a "disgusting set of grim photos". Images from this collection will be on view at the History Meeting House in Warsaw.
The History Meeting House has prepared an exhibition of unknown, unpublished works by Gerald Howson. In the collection of over 60 black-and-white photographs, the focus is on showing the everyday lives of people living in the People's Republic of Poland in 1959. The British painter, photographer and historian traveled to Warsaw, Kraków, Nowa Huta and Lublin in order to capture these images.
On assignment for his employer, Queen magazine (since merged with Harper's Bazaar), Howson arrived in Poland to take a photographic record of the Polish reality during the Cold War. He began his journey in Lublin and then went south to Kraków and Warsaw.
photo: Gerald Howson Archives / History Meeting House
After his three-week trip, Howson returned to the U.K. in May with dozens of rolls of film. But his efforts were in vain - the editors refused to use the images, and the article that was meant to be published never came out. The shots he had taken were not of a socialist utopia, but of an anguished country mired in poverty.
While Howson’s collection was extensive, only a portion of it has ever been seen. A few of the hundreds of photographs were published in The Daily Telegraph, the British newspaper. Other images from his archive were presented at the Centre for Jewish Culture in Kraków and at Grodzka Gate Theatre in Lublin.
photo: Gerald Howson Archives / History Meeting House
The curator for the event is Bogdan Frymorgen who is also a producer, radio journalist and the London correspondent for RMF FM radio. A former associate of the BBC World Service, Frymorgen has been taking care of Howson’s archive since 2008. The exhibition is taking place under the honorary patronage of His Excellency the Ambassador of Great Britain to Poland, Robin Barnett.
Sources: History Meeting House, author M.S. 19/09/2013
Translation: SMG 20/09/2013