Maria Chrząszczowa (18.06.1913 Warsaw - 29.01.1979 Warsaw)

Best known for her shots of architecture, most of them devoted to Warsaw, Chrzaszczowa was the author of a photographic account of the Polish capital in ruins in 1945.

Born into a family of Warsaw industrialists, the eldest of the three daughters of Maria, nee Gebethner, and Jozef Pfeiffer, Chrzaszczowa took her matura exams and graduated from a then popular school run by Kowalczykowna and Jaworkowna. She first came in contact with photography frequenting the two-year Municipal School of Ornamental Art in Warsaw.

In September 1934, she married Michal Chrzaszcz, the owner of a property in Rudze near Krakow. Her father thus wrote in his memoirs: ‘As for the marriage with Chrzaszcz, I had but one objection – every marriageable town girl has very little idea about living in the country, and the role that awaits her after marrying a landowner. Therefore I made one condition, that the marriage could only take place once Marysia had spent a test period as a housewife on the property’.

Maria Chrzaszczowa gave birth to two children – Andrzej and Maria. In spite of relocating and changing her lifestyle she did not cease photographing, to the contrary, she intensified her practice. She captured family celebrations, everyday life in the countryside, as well as her son’s development. Shortly before the outbreak of the war, in September 1939, she moved back to live with her parents in Warsaw. Her husband went to the front where he vanished without a trace in the eastern borderlands of Poland. The photographer spent the war in Warsaw working in “Foto-Greger” store at the Central Welfare Council.

Almost her entire photographic output was lost in a fire during the war. The earliest preserved collection is a record of Warsaw in ruins. The strong symbolic and emotional content of the photographs makes them distinct from other sets documentary photographs from the period. Iconic shots include the Madonna of Warsaw, and images of the deserted interiors of ruined buildings. Seventeen works from the series were included in the exhibition Warsaw Accuses! (Warszawa oskarza). A large part of this archive is currently in possession of the Historical Museum of Warsaw.

Towards the end of the 1945, Chrzaszczowa documented the Auschwitz extermination camp and the cities of Wroclaw, Jelenia Gora and Klodzko. Having returned to Warsaw, she worked as a photographer up till the mid-1970s, for, amongst others, the Polish Press Agency, the “Foto-Service” studio in 8 Marszalkowska St. headed by Kazimiera Funkiewiczowa, as well as for the Exhibitions and Fairs Company, where she took extra commissions as a retoucher.

From 1953 to 1974, Chrzaszczowa also ran a photographic studio at the Faculty of Polish Architecture at Warsaw Polytechnic. The extensive body of architecture shots in the collection of the Polytechnic testifies to the fact that she was not interested in photography exclusively as a visual aid for lecturers and students, but also captured obscure alleys, backyards and outskirts. It was a period during which Chrzaszczowa made a considerable number of photographs of contemporary architecture characterized not only by documentary, but also artistic, qualities.

Absorbed by her professional practice, Chrzaszczowa rarely exhibited her works, she did however submit photographs to, amongst others, National Exhibitions of Photography. Her photographs were included in such albums as The Six-Year Plan for the Reconstruction of Warsaw (Szescioletni plan odbudowy Warszawy) 1950; Polish Gardens (Ogrody polskie) by Gerard Ciolek, 1954; MDM, 1955; Sandomierz, 1956; Silesian Castles (Zamki slaskie) by Bohdan Guerquin, 1957; Wooden Architecture in Poland (Architektura drewniana w Polsce) by Witold Krassowski, 1961. She also published texts in magazines “Stolica”, “Architektura” and “Kobieta”, issue 15/1949 of the latter featuring her poem Mila Street (Ulica Mila) commemorating the drama of the Warsaw ghetto.

Some of Chrzaszczowa’s photographs were published under the pseudonym “Stefan”, which she also used as her logo when submitting works to contests. She was a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers from 1952.