The most compelling example of Polish street photography: Bolesław Augustis (1912–1995)
A Grzegorz Dąbrowski's Conversation at 6 pm
Bolesław Augustis, Untitled photo, Białystok, November 21, 1936, (courtesy of Grzegorz Dąbrowski / Albom.pl)
Trieste Contemporanea is pleased to invite you to Studio Tommaseo on 26 March, 2026, at 6 pm, where, as a public part of the activities of a workshop we organise in Trieste for the OWOP Centre for Support of Non-Governmental Organisations in Białystok, there will be a conversation dedicated to an in-depth analysis of the photographic body of work by Bolesław Augustis (1912–1995), regarded as one of the most significant documentarians of urban everyday life in interwar Poland – although he never achieved wide recognition during his lifetime. His collection comprises street photographs taken in Białystok between 1935 and 1938. Images include portraits of passersby, street scenes, family celebrations, public demonstrations, advertisement and the city’s architecture.
The rare opportunity to learn about the fascinating work and life history of the Polish photographer will be offered exclusively in Italy by Polish curator and journalist Grzegorz Dąbrowski as part of the Trieste Conversations program to rediscover themes and protagonists of twentieth-century visual culture in Eastern European countries. The lecturer, from the Widok Association for Cultural Education, has written on Augustis and curated exhibitions by him since 2004, when around 12,000 of his film negatives were accidentally discovered. He currently works at the Sleńdziński Gallery in Białystok, in its branch dedicated to photography.
Grzegorz Dąbrowski is a photographer, editor, and curator of photographic exhibitions. He studied pedagogy at the University of Białystok and photography at the Silesian University in Opava (Czech Republic).
He is the editor of albums featuring the work of Bolesław Augustis, including Augustis 2.0, which received a distinction in the Photographic Publication of the Year 2019 competition and was a finalist at festivals in Arles and PHotoEspaña. He collaborates with the Widok Association for Cultural Education on archival photography projects in the Polish–Belarusian borderland.
Dąbrowski has curated numerous exhibitions and is the author of documentary projects such as Ex oriente lux and Białystok – One Day. From 1994 to 2024, he worked as a photojournalist and editor-in-chief of the Białystok edition of Gazeta Wyborcza.
He currently works at the Sleńdziński Gallery in Białystok, in its photography department.