The exhibition Lessing Presents Lessing at the Galicia Jewish Museum forms a part of Kraków’s Austrian Day celebrations. Erich Lessing is one of the most important Austrian photographers in history, a chronicler of post-war Europe and author of the catalogue of portraits of the most important politicians of the 20th century.
His 1955 photo showing ministers from Austria, the USSR, the UK, the US and France on the day of the signing of the Austrian State Treaty is iconic of present-day Austria. He was a photoreporter with Associated Press and member of Magnum Press; in 1956, he rose to fame as the author of photos from the Hungarian uprising. The exhibition, recently shown in Vienna and New York, is a selection of photos chosen by Lessing’s daughter, from political photoreportages, through the previously unseen cycle Girls of the Sixties covering the Miss Poland competition in the 1960s, belle femme photos at the Cesenatico beach and intimate portraits of strippers. (dd, "Karnet" monthly)
