Wojciech Zamecznik is a Polish graphic artist who is considered a pioneer in combining the photographic medium with graphic arts. This volume is released on the occasion of the exhibition at the Musée de l'Elysée in collaboration with the Warsaw-based Archeology of Photography Foundation, home to the artist's archives. Featuring the multidisciplinary and experimental aspect of Zamecznik's photographic oeuvre – a production that explores a large variety of subjects (portrait, landscape, architecture, still life) and evinces his inclination for documentary, humanist photography, and specifically the aesthetics of the New Vision –, the publication also displays his more experimental practice with photomontage, photogram, over-exposure, chemical manipulation, and direct intervention on light sensitive material to create abstract and graphic forms. The book includes photographs he took while travelling in Europe and Poland in the 1950s and 1960s or produced in his own Warsaw apartment that also served as his studio. The iconographic selection includes the reproductions of Zamecznik's original prints, negatives, preparatory plates, prints, and contact- sheets, as well as the finalized versions of various objects he designed such as books, posters, album covers, offering an insight into the graphic designer's creative process. An analytical essay about Zamecznik's photographic practice by Anne Lacoste ; a biography, by Karolina Pucha a-Rojec ; a text exploring the Polish art scene contemporary with the artist, by Agnieszka Szewczyk ; and a presentation of the Polish photography context, by Karolina Zi ?bi ?ska-Lewandowska, supplement the publication.
