Keynote
An unusual biography of a photographer
who was a witness to key events in
the twentieth century. A story of a woman
who saw more than others did.

Selling Points
 A story about the remarkable artist
Zofia Chomętowska, whose photography
earned its place in the canon of world
photography.
 The book’s protagonist saw with her
own eyes key events in the history of
Europe – the collapse of the pre-war world,
the threat of war, and the birth of modern
western societies.
 The biography isn’t just limited to
the photographer’s life – it’s also a sociopolitical
panorama of her times.
 A feminist story about a female artist
who had to fight for her position in a world
dominated by men.
 A remarkable and unique biography,
written in an experimental way using
the language and metaphors offered by
photography.
 The author has already written several
bestselling biographies of other female
artists, including Agnieszka Osiecka and
Kalina Jędrusik.
Description
Zofia Chomętowska was born
died in 1991 in Buenos Aires. During
her lifetime the world changed its
character several times – and she
documented those metamorphoses.
She came from a landowning family,
and grew up in a bourgeois-intellectual
environment, attended literary
salons in between-the-wars Warsaw
and supported her family with her
own photographic studio. She was
an enthusiastic motorist, studied in Paris
and travelled through between-the-wars
Europe. In her early youth she documented
Polesie peasants using photography,
and later – now with her ever-present
Leica – portrayed Vienna after the fall
of the empire, Italy before the outbreak
of World War Two, Warsaw in the process
of modernization when Starzyński
was mayor, and finally – Warsaw
destroyed and then rebuilt after the war,
contributing to a priceless archive of life
at the beginning of the communist Polish
People’s Republic. Then she documented
Argentina, where she spent the second
half of her life in emigration.
The work of Chomętowska is a unique
chronicle of the last century – and now,
thanks to Urszula Ryciak, we can see
it in a completely new iteration.

Target Market
Readers of biographies about female
artists.
Readers interested in photography and
the history of photography.in 1902 in the region of Polesie and