Chris Niedenthal is a photographer – legend. For years, his photographs have been presented in exhibitions and publications. Thus, selecting approximately 200 images from an archive of hundreds of thousands of photographs posed a great challenge. We felt tempted to surprise the audience and present works which have not been shown before. However, a retrospective of Chris Niedenthal’s 50 years in photojournalism has never been done before. 

He documented the activities of two future Nobel Peace Prize winners: Lech Wałęsa and Mikhail Gorbachev. A winner of the World Press Photo prize himself, Niedenthal was a contract photographer for two of the most important newsmagazines in the world: Newsweek and Time. His photographs depicting life in Eastern Bloc countries were published by Stern, Geo, Der Spiegel, and Paris Match, among others. He was the only foreign photographer documenting the first days of the Lenin Shipyard strike in Gdańsk. From day one, his primary focus was photojournalism. Having no interest in studio or art photography, he wanted to document reality, not create a new one. 

Always professional and honest, he knew his limitations. He didn’t document the centres of protests or street riots. He did not cover conflicts. In one interview he said: ”I do not photograph dictators but the consequences of their actions”. (Ironically, it was a photograph of the Hungarian dictator János Kádár that that won him a World Press Photo prize). His prime interest was everyday life and ordinary people. These photographs are the greatest and most fascinating part of his archive. Perhaps it is so because the country his parents were born in was so different from the one he grew up in. He would roam communist-ruled Poland with a camera, capturing situations which seemed ordinary to contemporary Poles. Yet he saw something exceptional in them. 

A foreign correspondent press pass enabled him to take photographs few could take at that time. His contracts with Newsweek (from 1978) and then Time were a tremendous step forward in his career. It meant unlimited access to high quality colour films. He knew the language. He had a car and a British passport. He could leave Poland anytime. But he never did. That is why his archive is a unique journalistic record of Poland and Eastern Europe of the 1970s and 1980s. 

He would preserve it on colour slides. It was this difficult photographic medium, requiring very precise exposure, which lent itself to printing in glossy magazines. He used to ship undeveloped film rolls, meticulously described on envelopes, to editorial offices. He did not know what his work looked like. A lab technician would develop the films and a photo editor would choose the frame that would be published. Niedenthal was only able to see the effects of his work in the print editions of magazines sent to him by the editorial offices. Considering the delays of post offices, he sometimes had to wait for a long time.

Although he has worked for prestigious world magazines, he always points out that it was Polish photographers who taught him professional photography. 

We hope that you will be willing to get to know both the photographs and their author: an author who consistently followed his own path, knew how to use the opportunities which presented themselves, became a legend of photojournalism, and at the same time has remained a warm, open, and modest human being. 

Anna Brzezińska and Katarzyna Puchalska