Gallery "Prospektas" presents one of the most famous Polish photographers of XX century Edward Hartwig. The retrospective exhibition in Vilnius runs from 3 of March till 2 of April, 2005.
Edward Hartwig comes from a family with an artistic tradition. His father was a portrait photographer, his brother - a physician, creator of the Polish school of endocrinology, and his sister - Julia is an excellent poet. His wife, Helena has won prizes at international exhibitions and his two daughters, Ewa and Danuta, have also chosen photography as their occupation.
Born on 6th of September 1909 in Moscow. After 1917, his family returned to Poland and settled in Lublin, where his father opened his atelier. Edward wanted to be a graphic artist, a painter, however, he became a photographer, becoming very popular among the pre-war artistic bohemia of Lublin. In 1935-37 he studied in Vienna at the Institute of Graphic Art under Professor Rudolf Kopitz. Then in 1944, he was arrested by NKVD and exiled to a work camp in Joglo, where he spent three years. After his return he settled in Warsaw. From 1950 Edward Hartwig worked for thirty years as a theatre photographer. However, he did not abandon other themes and his own artistic research. He photographed landscapes, people. architecture, and sport - everything being a discovery.
From the end of the 1940s he was constantly experimenting and searching for new means of expression and methods of shaping the photographic image. Consequently, in 1948 he had already participated in the Warsaw Exhibition of Modern Polish Photography and a year after that in the Kraków Exhibition of Modern Art. Altogether, he has had several dozen solo exhibitions in Poland and abroad, for example Paris, Brussels, Athens, Amsterdam, Turin, Milan, Padua. London, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Pardubice, Budapest, Houston and Chicago. He has also participated in numerous group shows in Poland and around the world. Confirmation of his constantly novel approach to artistic photography was his participation in the International Exhibition of European Photography "Photographers on a Quest" in England in 1985, which confirmation is best embodied in repeated invitations to international exhibitions such as "10 Artist-Photographers of the World" and "10 Great World Photographers". He has published almost 30 of his own albums, the most famous of which are "Artistic Photography", "Behind the Scenes", "Photographic Variations':, and "Willows", along with albums on the following towns and cities: Lublin, Kazimierz, and Żelazowa Wola. In mid 1999 his latest album "The Halny Wind" was published. Edward Hartwig co-founded the Association of Polish Artist Photographers, he is also a member of the international photographic art organization FIAP, and winner of many prizes and distinctions. In 1960 he won the Olympic Medal in Rome for sports photography, an activity he did not only took photographs of. but also actively practiced. Before the war he used to visit the eastern border region (called "Kresy"} with a football team, and he also played tennis and skied for many years. He is included in all of the important photographic encyclopedias. He is a Polish photographer of the greatest merit and a large scope of interests. It may be said that he has recently broke another record: he received a grant at the age of 81 and went to Switzerland as a grantee. Edward Hartwig died October 28 2003 in Warsaw.
Anna i Andrzej Bernatowie
