I was born a long time ago. The Second War was on and what is more, the World one, but it did not make me into a man of the world. I was brought up practically in the street because I was kicked out after two days’ stay of the Caritas nursery school for a total lack of interest in prayer and for not playing dull children’s games. I was not relegated from primary school only because I could draw, with an aptitude worthy of an ape, decorative borders in my homework. They were replete with pictures of comrade Stalin, Lenin, Marks and Engels, separately and even with all four of them together. Then I managed to pass my A levels and instead of studying at the ASP (Academy of Fine Arts) I was made by my parents to study architecture, as they indeed wished that I become an engineer and not some painter. So I did study architecture – but alas! mostly the architecture of lovely female co-students. With time I expanded my studies to the female segment of other educational institutions in Krakow such as ASP, PWSM (the Academy of Music), PWST (the Drama School) and – acting on impulse, now and then – even of UJ (the Jagiellonian University) and AM (the Medical Academy). No wonder that my studies lasted and lasted, for almost seven years. During this time (and later) I had a number of exhibitions. I also entered all sorts of competitions in Poland and Czechoslovakia, and even in Moscow, Riga and Dresden. With a sack full of medals and the knowledge that I obtained from my master Wacław Nowak I knocked at the door of the ZPAF, Assosiation of Polish Art Photographers, in 1968 and in June (of the same year) I was given a membership card nr 361. Thus I left the University of Technology and began to work as a mere photographer at a design office dealing with renovation of Krakow’s historic monuments. Next, I worked for the Studios of Conservation of Monuments, the State Collection of Historic Monuments at the Wawel Castle and the National Museum in Krakow. In all these institutions I made a photographic record of splendid artifacts, works of human talent. At present, I take exclusively photos of beauty that results from love of two human beings, and is preferably of the sex very opposite to mine... And sometimes I even write fairy tales, not necessarily suitable for my grandchildren.

Tadeusz Płaszewski

More at www.plaszewski.art.pl

In the art gallery Grodzka (coincidentally situated in Grodzka Street), still the most recently opened gallery in Krakow, the exhibition of Tadeusz Płaszewski photographs opened.

The title of the exhibition Przychodzimy, odchodzimy... (We Come and Go), a line of a poem by Janusz Jęczmyk, which for years has served as one of the anthems of the artistic cabaret Piwnica pod Baranami, is a direct introduction to the atmosphere, subject matter and character of the photographs that were chosen by the author himself for this occasion. Tadeusz Płaszewski has been taking photographs for over 40 years with exceptional passion and delight, which will probably accompany him for – at least – the next forty years or longer. The most personal of his themes are people; portraits full of lyrical tone, of great beauty, and equally eye-catching. Subtle female nudes or half-nude studies, some multiplied in splendid composition. It is only natural then that the exhibition focuses on this aspect of his work.

This is an arrantly Cracovian presentation: strolling through the gallery we are among the old friends from the good old route Krzysztofory – Piwnica – Jaszczury. These are the friends who have aged in the meantime (at least some of them have), and those who have passed away.

One cannot overlook the haunting beauty of these black and white photos: all this softness and contrasts, a perfect handling of light. This is yet another (although not the last) reason why one should not miss this exhibition.

Joanna Antecka, “Dziennik Polski”, January 2007

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