An image from Little Man, photography by Zofia Rydet, layout by Wojciech Zamecznik
The photography album Little Man is an exceptional work, containing almost five hundred images shot by the legendary Polish photographer Zofia Rydet. The new French edition sports the innovative graphic design of Wojciech Zamecznik and beautiful, relevant quotes from Janusz Korczak's writing
Released in 1956 by the Polish Arkady publishing house, Little Man continues to captivate even with the global publishing trend for photography books. Rydet's photographs are enhanced by the book's innovative form, presenting a view of children that is not clichéd and demonstrating the beauty of the rotogravure printing.
Little Man was an unparalleled accomplishment in the People's Republic of Poland. Photographer-as-author albums appeared around the world in the 1950s, and some remain classics: William Klein’s New York (1955), Robert Frank's The Americans (1958), The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson with its Henri Matisse cover (1952), Europeans with coverage of Juan Miro (1955), as well as the Parisians from Robert Doisneau (1954). Such works established an identity of humanist photography.
But in Poland, photo albums functioned more like brochures, with images often employed in ideologic propaganda. Following the Stalin's death, the cultural thaw that began permitted humanist photojournalism to flourish in Poland. Yet Rydet's book was distinct; Fotografika by Edward Hartwig (1958) was very attractive in form but presented an entirely different approach to photography. When Rydet exhibited images from the Little Man series in a solo show in 1961 in Gliwice (with plans for exhibits in Kraków, Katowice and Bytom), they very much moved the audience.
Zofia Rydet had taken up photography later in her life. She had assisted her photographer brother Tadeusz during the Second World War, but only began to take her own shots when she was 40. The Little Man series is her first autonomous work, and from 1952 to 1963, Rydet conveyed the world of the child. This theme, along with motherhood and old age, held a special place for her, as she was childless. She first worked on the series in Poland, in the Silesia and Podhale regions in the south, and during trips in Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Egypt and Lebanon.
A child in a photograph could seem trivial, easily taken for granted, but Rydet captures childhood without simplifications. Describing her approach, the photographer said that she "wanted to move away from the stereotype of a care-free angelic childhood and show the multifaceted complexity of childhood experiences and reactions. Through appropriate synthesis, I wanted to say something about mankind, because as Korczak once said 'everything that happens in the dirty adult world also happens in the children's world'", alluding to the much-loved teacher and author Dr. Janusz Korczak.
In the new edition of Little Man, her perspective is reinforced by quotations from Korczak's influential writings. A letter to the editor of Polska magazine from November 1965 reflects Korczak's importance for Rydet:
I do not know if I really managed to speak to defend the little man. I fear that the public won’t look at [the book] as they would at other more or less successful albums, that they will not appreciate the pictures and feel free to judge them as good or bad, and won’t read and interrogate the beautiful texts of Korczak. That would be my failure, because I wanted to express a thought and to lead not to stopping on a particular photo, but a broader problem.
The reissue of the Little Man album was a complicated task. It meant re-creating the rotogravure printing technique and searching Rydet’s archives for photographs in the original book, as well as special framing work and replication of typography. Rydet cropped her photos in various ways, and it was not possible to retrieve all the models and slideshows of the first edition. Thanks to the committment of Maria Sokół-Augustyńska and Ewa Pasternak-Kapera of the Zofia Rydet Foundation, the original photos were retrieved. Juliusz Zamecznik authorized the replica of Wojciech Zamecznik’s design, and the original publisher Arkady gave permission for republication and advised Elżbieta Leszczyńska on editorial matters. Maja Latyńska approved the English translation of Marek Latynski’s text. Kuba Certowicz worked on photo reproduction to achieve the original standards, Maciej Turczyniak and Dorota Pracka did scans and ensured image quality, Marta Przybyło-Ibadoullajev restored the graphic design and monitored print quality, and Julia Odnous made corrected texts.
The re-edition received financial support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland and of the Institute of Paper, and international promotion was realised by the Polish Institute in Paris and the Langhans Gallery Prague.
Little Man
by Zofia Rydet
French reprint of the 1965 original published by Arkady
230 pages
146 black and white photographs
Format: 24,5 x 19 cm
Cover: rigid canvas jacket
Photographs: Zofia Rydet
Designed by: Wojciech Zamecznik
Quotes: Janusz Korczak
Preface: Alfred Ligocki
Translations: Marek Łatyński, Gilberte Crépy-Szymańska, Eugeniusz Szpak
Editor's note: Karolina Lewandowska
Editor reissue: Archeology of Photography Foundation
Partner: Zofia Rydet Foundation
The edition is financed by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of the Cooperation in the Field of Public Diplomacy 2012 programme
Thumbnail credits: A photograph from the Little Man series by Zofia Rydet
Editor: SRS