The photographs of Sylwester "Kris" Braun are among the most important documents of the Warsaw Uprising. The Museum of Warsaw presents original prints made by Braun at the exhibition "Sylwester "Kris" Braun. Photographer immortalizing the Warsaw Uprising". It asks the question of when and how a biographical account becomes a historical narrative, and also reveals the figure of Berta Weissberger, Braun's assistant.
On July 30, an album of the same title will also be released, in which over two hundred photographs are accompanied by texts by Piotr Głogowski, Iwona Kurz, Tomasz Stempowski and Tomasz Szerszeń describing previously unknown fragments of Braun's biography, analyzing the photographer's workshop and travel routes, as well as the iconography of the photographs of the uprising. The exhibition and the album are part of the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising prepared by the Museum of Warsaw.
Sylwester "Kris" Braun is one of the most important photographers of the Warsaw Uprising. Many of the frames he took in 1944 have become icons. They are recalled and widely recognized as images of the uprising, even when they are not signed. Braun's original prints are the most valuable objects related to the Warsaw Uprising in the photographic collection of the Museum of Warsaw. Their presentation in the form of an album and exhibition will honor the 80th anniversary of the August Uprising.
The exhibition will be available for viewing as part of the main exhibition of the Museum of Warsaw until December 29, 2024.
– The history of Braun's photographs is not limited to the moment he exposed the negatives – says Piotr Głogowski, curator of the exhibition. – Their turbulent fate includes: their hiding, finding, wandering around the world, the disappearance of a significant part of them, and their inclusion in the museum collection. New light on Braun's person and work is also shed by the identification and finding of his assistant, and at the same time the author of some of the photographs – Berta Weissberger, who after emigrating to the United States and getting married took the name and surname Betty Lauer.
The exhibition "Sylwester "Kris" Braun. Photographer from the Uprising" is a unique opportunity to see Braun's original prints, to follow the trails the pair of photographers traversed through fighting Warsaw and to see how the documentary recording of events became a widely known story about the Warsaw Uprising.
The exhibition reflects the photojournalistic nature of Braun's photographs, which results largely from the fact that they are arranged in closed, well-thought-out series. The shots show on a micro scale the everyday life of the fighting capital, its heroic moments, sometimes joyful, but also moving and tragic. A guard post on a barricade, a piano concert, drilling a well are seemingly trivial topics that gain a sublime meaning when compared with other, parallel events, such as the funeral of victims, a ride in a captured transporter, escorting a column of prisoners.
Braun's biography, and above all the reinstatement of Berta Weissberger as an important heroine of the story, shows how many factors influence the creation and reception of historical narratives. Braun had a pass during the uprising, allowing him to move freely around the liberated areas of the capital, he chose the subjects and scenes he photographed himself, and he forwarded selected prints for distribution by the Home Army's Office of Information and Propaganda. After the war, he attempted to disseminate the photographs, and when in the 1980s and 1990s the political situation allowed for the return of the iconography of the uprising and the return of Braun himself to Poland, he actively participated in preparing exhibitions and book publications.
Thanks to the many years of research work of the exhibition curator Piotr Głogowski, the places immortalized in the photographs, the daily dates and even the times of day when they were taken were identified. This allowed for the reconstruction of the routes of the journeys and the reassembly of the negative strips cut by Braun into rolls.
The themes discussed in the exhibition are developed in the album entitled "Sylwester "Kris" Braun. Photographer from the uprising." The fascinating fate and rich work of one of the most important photographers of the 1944 uprising are presented in the texts by Piotr Głogowski, Iwona Kurz, Tomasz Stempowski and Tomasz Szerszeń. The publication traces Braun's journeys through the Warsaw Uprising, analyses his photographic skills, and places his work in the context of other photographers of August and September 1944. No less important is the legend that Braun created about himself, and the role he and his photographs play in the current narrative of the Warsaw Uprising. The album contains over two hundred photographs by Braun, mainly from 1944, as well as a selection of newspaper clippings and fragments of correspondence. The book was published in Polish and English.
Sylwester "Kris" Braun (1909–1996) was involved in the underground, was a member of the Union of Armed Struggle, and later the Home Army. During the Warsaw Uprising, dressed in civilian clothes, with a small Leica Standard camera hidden in his jacket pocket, he wandered the streets of Śródmieście, nearby Wola, and Powiśle. He paid attention to the composition of the frames, tried to take different perspectives – he climbed roofs, stood right behind the defenders of the barricades. He often repeated shots, slightly correcting them. He photographed ruins and ongoing battles, but also moments of respite, such as a piano concert at the U Aktorek café.
Although most of the photos and negatives burned in the photographer's apartment in Powiśle, some of the plates were hidden in jars in the basement of the building on Marszałkowska Street and found after the end of the war. Over time, the photographs from the uprising became increasingly recognizable, but their author, who had lived in exile for many years, remained largely unknown. It was not until 1979, thanks to the campaign of "Kurier Polski", that the work and figure of Sylwester Braun were popularized. In 1981, the photographer donated a collection of over 1,500 surviving negatives to the Museum of Warsaw.
source: Museum of Warsaw
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