Fotografik Krzysztof Gierałtowski (ur. 1938) od lat 60. XX w. portretuje znaczące postacie polskiego życia intelektualnego, kulturalnego i społecznego. Przez lata jego fotografie złożyły się w cykl „Polacy, portrety współczesne”, liczący ponad 300 tys. negatywów, (https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/krzysztof-gieraltowski, dostęp 3.11.2020). Some of these black and white portraits are in the POLIN Museum collection. They include a sharp image of Hugo Steinhaus, a mathematician and aphorist, a portrait of director Roman Polański full of youthful verve, and a photograph of the writer Jerzy Kosiński. In his ``veiled`` portraits, in which the model's face is hidden behind a prop, as in the case of the painter and poet Erna Rosenstein and director Erwin Axer, the artist reveals the richness of his characters’ inner world through this simple procedure. The most poignant portraits include the photos of great artists in their late old age: the painter Jonasz Stern, the writer Julian Stryjowski, the poet Adam Ważyk and the historian Marian Małowist. Their Jewish origin and Jewish fate link these outstanding representatives of Polish science and culture. They experienced the Holocaust as children (Polański, Kosiński), adults (Małowist, Rosenstein, Stern, Steinhaus, Axer) or with its magnitude, pain and emptiness, faced after their return to Poland, like Adam Ważyk and Julian Stryjkowski. Renata Piątkowska
