Mariusz Widerynski

Mariusz Widerinski – photographer and academic teacher (art professor),

Looking at my life so far, I have to admit that for a couple of decades I have been stuck in an extremely A chimerical and difficult relationship. Full of elation and uncertainty, happiness and failures. For as Otherwise how to define all these years of living together with photography; a great love and passion?

After graduation, he put his degree in historical geology in a drawer, and photography, his great passion, became a profession and a way of life. He started in the fall of 1976 as an agency photographer at the National Publishing Agency in branches: Rzeszow (1976-1979), Zakopane (1979-1985), and then in Warsaw. During this time, he documented the lives of “ordinary-unusual people” and photographed the architecture and landscapes of southern Poland.

He has been a freelance photographer since the late 1980s. He works extensively in creative and documentary photography; portrait and subjective landscape photography. The author of numerous solo presentations of his work at home and abroad. He has participated in many exhibitions and group projects. Among his realizations, he considers as important photographic projects: Physiographies (Lublin 2009), “To the West from the East” (Tbilisi, Georgia 2012), “Mysteries of the Orthodox Church” (Warsaw 2013), “Journey to oblivion” (Bialystok 2016), “Skit” (Bardejov, Slovakia 2018) and “My their faces or life described by portraits” (Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic 2020). He points to participation in the “Photographic Scores” project, an innovative series of concerts showing the relationship between image and sound, photography and contemporary music, as significant in his work (selections:) “Dream of Podlasie” (2012), “Stones of oblivion” and “Behold” (2013), “Monaster” (2014). But he considers as the most important extensive author’s album publications, photographic essays significant for culture: “Łańcut” (Rzeszów 1991, ISBN 83-03-03320-4), “Wilanów Palace” (Warsaw 2000, ISBN 83-87758-08-6), “Chłopi” by Władysław Reymont – 1280 photographs and reproductions of works of art and artistic crafts and utilitarian objects illustrating a four-volume jubilee publication (Warsaw 2000, ISBN 83-914322-0-3; volume I: ISBN 83-914322-1-1; Volume II: ISBN 83-914322-2-X; Volume III: ISBN 83-914322-3-8; Volume IV: ISBN 83-914322-4-6), “Polish Folk Art, Łowicz” (Warsaw 2001 ISBN 83-87758-06-X), “Łańcut” (Lesko 2009. ISBN 978-83-7576-051-4), “Spirituality of Orthodoxy” (Warsaw 2015, ISBN 978-83-60311-98-1), “Sejm and Senate of the Republic of Poland. A Multiple Portrait,” a comprehensive photographic account of the architecture of the Polish Parliament headquarters (Warsaw 2018, ISBN 978-83-7666-510-8). In 2021, he joined the very prestigious group of “Magicians of horse photography” of the Polish Digital Equestrian Library’s Legends of Polish Equestrianism portal.

He is a member of the Association of Authors “ZAiKS” and the Union of Polish Artists Photographers (ZPAF), where he served as president of the Board of Directors from 2005 to 2011. Prior to that, from 2003 to 2005, he was Vice President for Business Affairs. Artistic Director of the Board of the Warsaw District of the ZPAF and Vice President of the ZG ZPAF. He was the originator and curator of photography exhibitions, including more than a hundred presentations of the work of the most outstanding Polish and foreign authors at the ZPAF Old Gallery in Warsaw and other galleries, and more than a dozen exhibitions of Polish photography abroad. He has been organizing open-air workshops and photography workshops for years. He participates as a juror in competitions and as a photo reviewer in portfolio reviews.

For years he has combined his creative work with teaching – he is an academic teacher, professor of art at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. In 2007, he accepted an invitation from Prof. Stanislaw Wieczorek from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and conducted classes for part-time students; that was the beginning… In 2011, he defended his doctorate in the area of portrait photography; and a few years later, he held postdoctoral proceedings in the field of cinematographic arts in the field of photography. In 2019, he was awarded the title of Professor of Art by Presidential Decree; all stages at the Department of Cinematography and Television Realization at the St. Petersburg State University of Film, Television and Theater. Leon Schiller in Lodz, Poland. Since 2009, he has worked at the Department of Media Art; he heads the Media Concepts Department and runs the graduate Photography Applications Studio.

His great passions have always been mountains, travel and horses. He has been an active GOPR mountain rescuer since 1978, and has recently become a senior mountain rescuer.