Tadeusz Rolke (b. 1929), was released from prison under the amnesty announced after the death of Joseph Stalin. The would-be historian, sentenced to seven years in prison at the judicial farce for allegedly attempting to overthrow the regime, landed on the pavement with no prospects for work.
Rolke, looking for a stable job, first tried his hand as a lab technician in optical factories, but as early as 1955, he began publishing single images and his first photo essays in the press. In 1958, he received a significant award at a national photo contest, and the Trybuna Ludu (People's Tribune) daily proclaimed Rolke a prodigy of Polish photography. In 1960, he was promoted to the position of a full-time photographer at the renowned Polska (Poland) journal. He took pictures of the elite of the Polish People's Republic and soon become embraced by them.
At the time, the communist regime abated and the government eased up on its pushing of socialist realism. Spurred on by the so-called thaw, the entire culture underwent a revival. Changes can be spotted with the naked eye in the photographs from this period. It is enough to reach for one of the annuals of the popular weekly magazines – Przekrój (Cross-Section), Stolica (Capital), Świat (World) – to see how the issues concerning workers and the military were replaced by reports and pictures from jazz concerts, holidays at the seaside and in the mountains, the openings of modern art galleries or the Miss Polonia contest. Tadeusz Rolke belongs to a small group of photographers documenting the post-Stalinist world, and as the archive of over one hundred thousand images today stored at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw shows, he was everywhere and captured everything.
For many people, the portrait of Rolke’s friend and fellow photographer Eustachy Kossakowski leaning against the handlebars of a Lambretta scooter (as fashionable as it was unobtainable in the communist Poland of the 60s) and a girl named Matylda standing next to it, is a symbol of the era. This photo of a young couple on Chmielna Street in the centre of Warsaw stands out from the quotidian, artistic and political shots which Rolke was known for.
It seems deceptively simple, as if taken during a gap between commissions from journals. The nonchalant pose of the man sitting on a scooter and leaning towards the girl; his wild mane, his pouting lips, and his gaze hidden under sunglasses, make Kossakowski the perfect model of a gigolo. In turn, Matylda, a girl in a flared skirt, fashionable blouse and scarf on her head, despite smiling, seems anxious and tense, as if aware of being just a beautiful object at the mercy of two photographers (years later even the actual name of the girl is uncertain).
The slight movement of her body, unsteadily supported on shapely legs, corresponds with the noticeable blurring of her silhouette. Her hidden hands fall along her torso, and she most probably holds a purse in one hand, a bright part of which sticks out from behind her darker skirt. Her sharp features further enhance the op-art pattern of her blouse and the folds of her skirt. The composition of the frame is built on the line of the curb crossing down its side, the line of cars parked in a row on the right side of the road, and the horizontal electric lines stretched between houses running down the street.
After a moment, our attention is drawn to a truck parked slightly behind the models, and a man standing near it in a white shirt that stands out against the background. Despite the shallow depth of field, we can guess that he's looking sideways toward the hastily improvised session by Rolke. Such a scene of a photographer and two elegant youths posing for pictures was quite a rare view in the coarse and ruined Warsaw. Rolke’s photography, more than than reality itself, shows the dreams of the post-war generation; dreams about a life different to that available under the socialism of the times. Despite the formal resemblance to similar pictures taken at that time in the West, they are something more: they are the manifesto of a generation.
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This is what this photography is about – Joanna Kinowska writes – it is more of an icon of style, fashion, time and memory rather than a typical iconic photograph – a document, a testimony, an important, landmark shot.
With the passing of time, Tadeusz Rolke became more bothered with the irreducible tension between the official image of the world emerging from the press for which he worked, and the brutal political reality, student protests and the intervention in Czechoslovakia. Dreams of freedom and fantasies of prosperity under socialism turn out to be pipe dreams. Both he and Eustachy Kossakowski decided to emigrate at the end of the 60s. Rolke went to Hamburg, Kossakowski settled in Paris. Matylda (or Joanna, according to some) remained behind the Iron Curtain.
Author: Adam Mazur, September 2014, transl.GS, 11.09.2014