Sylvester "Kris" Braun. Photographer since the Uprising - a unique book and exhibition for the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising

Museum of Warsaw, 30.07.2024, 6 pm

Photographs by Sylwester "Kris" Braun are some of the most important documents of the Warsaw Uprising. The Museum of Warsaw will present them in an album and in the exhibition Sylwester "Kris" Braun. Photographer since the Uprising. The two hundred photographs are accompanied by texts by Piotr Glogowski, Iwona Kurz, Tomasz Stempowski and Tomasz Szerosz, introducing hitherto unknown fragments of Braun's biography, analyzing the photographer's workshop and itineraries, as well as the iconography of the uprising photographs. The exhibition will feature original prints made by Braun and materials from the photographer's private archive. The 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising will also be commemorated by the Praga '44 exhibition at the Museum of Warsaw's Praga district, as well as events at the Chamber of Remembrance at the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery and other branches of the Warsaw Museum: meetings, walks, debates, concerts and film screenings.

Sylvester "Kris" Braun was the creator of the photo of the bombed Prudential building, which has become an icon - a visual symbol of the Warsaw Uprising and the German occupation. However, this is just one of more than three thousand photographs he took during World War II. He made his first wartime photo essays as early as September 1939, during the siege of Warsaw, but the original negatives for them were burned during the 1944 uprising. Several dozen rolls survived from the wartime conflagration and subsequent wandering around the world - a total of 1538 frames. The photographs show soldiers, civilians and everyday life in the war-torn city, which was home to more than 900,000 people before the outbreak of the uprising.

Book Sylvester "Kris" Braun. Photographer since the inception of is published on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. The fascinating fate and rich work of one of the most important photographers of the 1944 uprising is brought closer by texts by Piotr Glogowski, Iwona Kurz, Tomasz Stempowski and Tomasz Szeresz. The publication charts Braun's wanderings in insurgent Warsaw, analyzes his photographic technique, but also places his work in the context of other photographers of August and September 1944. No less important is the legend Braun created about himself and the role he and his photographs play in the current narrative about the Warsaw Uprising. The album contains more than 200 photographs by Braun, primarily from 1944, as well as a selection of newspaper clippings and excerpts from correspondence. The book will be published in Polish-English.

Simultaneously with the launch of the publication, an exhibition of photographs by Sylwester "Kris" Braun under the same title will open at the Museum of Warsaw's headquarters in the Old Town Square. His original prints are the most valuable objects relating to the Warsaw Uprising in the photographic collection of the Museum of Warsaw. Mainly Braun's reporter photographs will be shown, including shots taken in collaboration with Berta Weissberger. The exhibition poses the question of when and how a biographical account becomes a historical narrative. The exhibition is curated by Piotr Glogowski.

The opening of the exhibition and the premiere of the book Sylwester "Kris" Braun. Photographer from the Rise will be held on July 30 at 6 p.m. at the Museum of Warsaw, 42 Old Town Square. The exhibition will be on display until December 29, 2024.

Sylvester "Kris" Braun (1909-1996) belonged to the underground, was a member of the Union for Armed Struggle and later the Home Army. During the Warsaw Uprising, dressed in civilian clothes, with a small Leica Standard camera tucked in his jacket pocket, he roamed around the streets of Śródmieście, nearby Wola and Powiśle. He attached importance to the composition of the frames, and tried to adopt different perspectives - he climbed on rooftops, 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 were burned in the photographer's apartment in Powiśle, some of the plates Braun managed to hide in jars in the basement of a building on Marszalkowska Street and found after the war ended. With time, the insurgent photographs became more and more recognizable, but their author, who had been living in exile for many years, remained more widely unknown. It was not until 1979, thanks to a campaign by the "Polish Courier", that the achievements and silhouette of Sylvester Braun were popularized. In 1981 the photographer donated a collection of more than 1,500 surviving negatives to the Museum of Warsaw.

Celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising at the Warsaw Museum will include meetings, concerts, walks, debates, film screenings and presentations of memorabilia from the period. A detailed program will be published in the last week of June.

Selected events

The Chamber of Remembrance at the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery, in cooperation with the Zbigniew Raszewski Theater Institute, is preparing a performative readings excerpts from diaries, notes and literary texts about the daily life of the uprising (August 1, August 13 and October 2).

As of August 2 in the Memorial Chamber at a special screening will be able to see the warsaw uprising memorabilia: items salvaged by participants in the events, things belonging to those who perished, as well as the remains of objects pulled from the rubble of the destroyed city. Previously family heirlooms, over time they acquired the status of relics, until finally they came under the care of an institution that cares for the memory of the life of the city and its inhabitants.

August 3 meetings with Wanda Traczyk-Stawska and Monika Lurie will be held. After the exhibition Voices of Memory by Krzysztof Wodiczko, will be guided by the curators of the Memorial Chamber. On the same day, the Pharmacy Museum will invite visitors to walk in the footsteps of pharmacies and pharmacists of the Warsaw Uprising in the area of the Old Town and Krakowskie Przedmieście.

August 31 The Museum-Palmiry Memorial will invite you to a walk in the footsteps of the Warsaw Uprising in the Kampinos Forest.

September 18 an exhibition will open at the Museum of Warsaw's Praga. Prague '44, which will talk about the course of the Warsaw Uprising on the Praga side of the Vistula River, as well as recall the dissimilarity of the events in right-bank Warsaw from the fate of the entire city between August 1944 and March 1945.

October 1 The Museum of Warsaw, together with the National Philharmonic, will invite you to a ceremonial Concert commemorating the civilian population of insurgent Warsaw. The National Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Bartosz Michałowski, will perform Requiem Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

October 2, on the Day of Remembrance of the Civilian Population of Insurgent Warsaw, in the Memorial Chamber will be inaugurated installation Death of the city, which will commemorate the burial sites of the victims and the destruction of the capital in the form of a monumental map.

The events were co-financed by funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Fund for Promotion of Culture - a state purpose fund. Implementation of the task "80 meetings around the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery".