The Most Famous
PHOTOGRAPHERS from Poland
This page contains a list of the greatest Polish Photographers. The pantheon dataset contains 148 Photographers, 2 of which were born in Poland. This makes Poland the birth place of the 13th most number of Photographers behind Russia, and Hungary.
Top 3
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Polish Photographers of all time. This list of famous Polish Photographers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.
1. Wilhelm Brasse (1917 - 2012)
With an HPI of 55.61, Wilhelm Brasse is the most famous Polish Photographer. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages on wikipedia.
Wilhelm Brasse (3 December 1917 – 23 October 2012) was a Polish professional photographer and a prisoner in Auschwitz during World War II. He became known as the "famous photographer of Auschwitz concentration camp." His life and work were the subject of the 2005 Polish television documentary film The Portraitist (Portrecista), which first aired in the Proud to Present series on the Polish TVP1 on 1 January 2006. Brasse was of mixed Austrian-Polish descent. He learned photography in Katowice at the studio of his aunt. After the 1939 German invasion of Poland and occupation of Brasse's hometown Żywiec, in southern Poland, he was interrogated by the Schutzstaffel (SS). He refused to swear allegiance to Hitler, and was imprisoned for three months. After his release, still refusing to capitulate to the Volksliste and forced membership of German Army, he tried to escape to Hungary and join the Polish Army in France but was captured, along with other young men, at the Polish–Hungarian border and deported to KL Auschwitz-Birkenau as prisoner number 3444. He was assigned to the camp's Erkennungsdienst, which photographed events in the camp, including medical experiments, and created portraits for the inmates' files. Brasse estimated that he took 40,000 to 50,000 "identity pictures" from 1940 until 1945, before being moved to another concentration camp in Austria, where he was liberated by the American forces in May 1945. While many of Brasse's photographs did not survive, some are on display in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
2. Peter Lindbergh (1944 - 2019)
With an HPI of 55.43, Peter Lindbergh is the 2nd most famous Polish Photographer. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.
Peter Lindbergh (born Peter Brodbeck; 23 November 1944 – 3 September 2019) was a German fashion photographer and film director. He had studied arts in Berlin and Krefeld, and exhibited his works before graduation. In 1971, he turned to photography and worked for the Stern magazine. In fashion photography, he portrayed models Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Tatjana Patitz, Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington together for the January 1990 British Vogue cover, beginning an era of supermodels. He photographed the Pirelli Calendar three times (1996, 2002, 2017), made several films, and created covers for music including Tina Turner's Foreign Affair, Sheryl Crow's The Globe Sessions and Beyoncé's I Am... Sasha Fierce. His work has been presented at international exhibitions. Lindbergh preferred black & white photography, and noted in 2014: "This should be the responsibility of photographers today to free women, and finally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection."
3. Lotte Jacobi (1896 - 1990)
With an HPI of 47.35, Lotte Jacobi is the 3rd most famous Polish Photographer. Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.
Lotte Jacobi (August 17, 1896 – May 6, 1990) was a leading American portrait photographer and photojournalist, known for her high-contrast black-and-white portrait photography, characterized by intimate, sometimes dramatic, sometimes idiosyncratic and often definitive humanist depictions of both ordinary people in the United States and Europe and some of the most important artists, thinkers and activists of the 20th century.
People
Pantheon has 3 people classified as Polish photographers born between 1896 and 1944. Of these 3, none of them are still alive today. The most famous deceased Polish photographers include Wilhelm Brasse, Peter Lindbergh, and Lotte Jacobi. As of April 2024, 1 new Polish photographers have been added to Pantheon including Wilhelm Brasse.
Deceased Polish Photographers
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Wilhelm Brasse
1917 - 2012
HPI: 55.61
Peter Lindbergh
1944 - 2019
HPI: 55.43
Lotte Jacobi
1896 - 1990
HPI: 47.35
Newly Added Polish Photographers (2024)
Go to all RankingsOverlapping Lives
Which Photographers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 3 most globally memorable Photographers since 1700.
