Marjan Fuks

Marjan Fuks was born in Warsaw in 1884. In sources, he appears both under the name ‘Marjan’ – this is the name he used – and ‘Marian’ – which is the version used by people writing about him and cataloguing his work. He started his photographic career in the newsroom of 'Świat' Świat weekly, then newly-created in 1906. He had his own column there titled 'Illustrated Appendix'.

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portrait

Podpis obrazka (umieszczony pod zdjęciem)

Marian Fuks, photo: 'Polski Słownik Judaistyczny: Dzieje, Kultura, Religia', Prószyński i S-ka

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Center

Press photographer

In the press materials of the Marjan Fuks: First Photojournalist of the Second Republic of Poland exhibition, topics with which the photojournalist occupied himself were listed:

Fuks photographed the 1905 revolution and everyday life under the Russian regime, the last years of World War I, patriotic protests in Warsaw in 1916 on the anniversary of the Constitution of 3^rd May, the Regency Council, Interim Government, war with the Bolsheviks in 1920, the May coup of 1926, the return of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s remains to Poland. He shot iconic photographs which went down in history, such as the photographs of Józef Piłsudski on Poniatowski Bridge during the May coup […]. Fuks also documented famous scandals. He reported the process of the Pauline Father Damazy Macoch and Rita Gorgonowa as well as everyday criminal events.

Professor Marian Fuks, a distant relative of his, reminisced:

His intention to shock sometimes bordered on sensationalism, he was part romanticist, part dreamer, but also a man of business.

Propaganda and the ‘dawn of photojournalism in Poland’

Fuks was known as the ‘king of Polish photojournalists’. On the one hand, he deserved this title by being the most important representative of his profession. On the other, his mission to spread and educate the people about photojournalism was very important.

In 1910, Marjan Fuks created the Propaganda photo agency – the first such agency in Poland. It worked with ‘the most important pre-war magazines and provided photos to agencies from Germany, the United Kingdom and France. After 15 years, it was already working with 12 photographers’.

In 1916, he co-created the first professional photographer trade union which included the most important journalists of the interwar period; besides Fuks were Wacław Saryusz-Wolski and Stefan Plater-Zyberk – founder of Poland’s second photo agency.

Fuks appeared in front of the court several times, once in 1928, accusing Abram Gołubczyk of ‘infringing copyrights’. On the 15^th anniversary of the creation of his own photo agency, he released a booklet titled Dawn of Photojournalism in Poland. It was an advertising booklet of the agency which listed examples of situations in which had Fuks appeared in the past. Fuks was the first to talk about the obligation of reliable photographic service, about the qualities which a photojournalist should have, giving real-life examples of how a photojournalist should approach photographic errands issued by the government.

Photojournalism is an independent art which requires, beside photography skills, primarily: journalistic nerve, sensitivity to current events, the ability to capture that which can disappear forever in a second, quick orientation, decisiveness, perceptiveness, experience regarding various commemorations and festivities, knowledge of people, relationships, manners and customs, traditions, connections with people who play a role in society (or might play it in the future), excellent memory, smoothness and the ability to retrieve important data from interviews and photos which were already shot. Besides all this, a photographer needs to be calm, prudent, self-assured in his work and has to possess the talent to capture an image in a pretty frame, on a beautiful background, so that it can be reproduced nicely in a newspaper.

In 1914, Fuks planned a trip to Paris, through Berlin, on a bicycle, so that he could photograph on the road: ‘so that, as a true photojournalist, not to lose the time spent on the road’. His journey coincided with the events of World War I. He was detained for a few months in a prisoner-of-war camp and later moved to a prison in Berlin. During his absence, Propaganda was managed by his wife, Teofila Fuks.

Filmmaker

Fuks was also interested in film – he shot them primarily according to his own vision. A Lunatic in Tworki was a 1912 film starring Stefan Jaracz and his wife Jadwiga. In Berlin, in 1918, he shot an adaptation of Gabriela Zapolska’s drama titled Carewicz. He also experimented with the documentary genre, especially at the end of his life. In 1930, he formed the Artfilm Film Workshop.

Fuks Today

Ignacy Płażewski, the renowned author of the first serious publication on the history of photography, mentions Fuks twice in his only work titled A Look Into the Past of Polish Photography by citing the same sentence. He mentioned only the creation of an agency by Fuks (without even giving its name) and a few of the agency’s clients from abroad. Płażewski appreciated only the pictorial photographers and showed the era’s approach to press photographers doing documentary and photojournalism.

In 2017, Krzysztof Wójcik, the curator of an exhibition in Dom Spotkań z Historią, attempted to review Fuks’ archive once again. In an introduction to the exhibition’s catalogue, he wrote:

With time, an outstanding character started to emerge from this research. It is worth quoting his contemporaries: Kornel Makuszyński called him a ‘fiend who sees everything, knows everyone and will find out about anything from everyone’. Antoni Słonimski dubbed him ‘the Napoleon of photography’.

Fuks died in 1935. His former workshop located in Marconi villa on the crossing of Marszałkowska Street and Aleje Jerozolimskie was destroyed during the bombing in September 1939. It is said that Fuks’ entire photography archive perished at that time.

Originally written in Polish by Joanna Kinowska, November 2018, translated to English by Patryk Grabowski, July 2019

Marjan Fuks

photojournalism

antoni słonimski

20th century photography