Marcin Olszyński (1829-1904) i jego działalność fotograficzna
Marcin Olszyński (1829-1904) and his photographs

Summary/Abstract: Marcin Olszyński was an important figure in the cultural life of Warsaw in the 2nd half of the 19th century. Known mostly as a friend of artists, he was also an active photographer and great admirer of the new medium. He also became acquainted with Karol Beyer, the most important Polish photographer in those days. Beyer taught him the wet collodion process. His first work, a joint portrait of himself and Henryk Pillati, dates back to July 1853. There are more examples like this in Olszynski’s Albums, which were akin to illustrated diaries, in which he and his friends put numerous drawings and some photographs documenting their daily life in a rather facetious manner. They include portraits of Baron Ferdynand Kloch and Juliusz Kossak (1854), Franciszek Kostrzewski, Józef Kenig and others. They were all taken in Beyer’s studio, are of rather poor quality and are only really interesting as an iconographic source. As early as in 1855 this passion led to Olszyński experimenting with pictures taken outside the studio. The most famous of these attempts are his photographs of Starogrod, a landed estate belonging to the Horodyński family. On the occasion of the harvest festival in August he took many scenes of village life. They were sent by Beyer to Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. He introduced them to his readers in 1858. They are very realistic, but his realism did not meet the public’s expectations. Other examples are a series of photographs commemorating a party held by Olszyński’s friends in Starogród and the Kostrzewski family at their landed estate in Cisie. In 1860 he was one of the first people to photograph the Tatra Mountains during a trip with fellow artists. In 1865 he set up a studio with Konrad Brandel, called “Konrad Brandel & Co.”. It was famed for the so-called photo calendars (1866-1869) or the popularization of tableaux. In 1877, Olszyński set up his own studio under the name “Prim” (resold in 1879). From 1865 he worked as an art director for “Kłosy”, where he published many prints based on photographs, including those he had taken himself. After dismission in 1886 tried again to establish his own studio, "Świetlik”. He maintained his keen interest in photography and was a member of the jury at the 1st Exhibition of Photography held in Warsaw in 1901. Olszyński is an interesting example of an amateur whose deep passion for photography motivated him to change it into a profession, yet despite his social position and connections he was unsuccessful. Nevertheless some of his works deserve recognition and guarantee him a place in the history of Polish photography.

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