Memories of summer 4 

Bronisław Schlabs (1921–2000) was one of the most original figures in twentieth-century Polish art. After graduating from the Poznań University of Technology in 1949, he became interested in photography. From the early 1950s, he was active not only as an artist but also as an organiser of exhibitions. His photographic abstractions from that period can be associated with the painterly informel movement. He would distort photographs of natural objects by manipulating prints or negatives. He also created relief-like works using non-painterly materials such as wire, roofing felt or technical components. Among the most significant early exhibitions in Schlabs’ career were *Subjective Fotografie*, organised by Otto Steinert in Essen (1958), and *The Sense of Abstraction in Contemporary Photography* at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1960), where he was the only artist invited from Poland. A key moment in his artistic path was meeting Zdzisław Beksiński and Jerzy Lewczyński while organising the *Step into Modernity* exhibition (1957). Two years later, the trio staged a private show at the headquarters of the Gliwice Photographic Society. Widely discussed by photographers and critics alike, the exhibition was the result of bold experimentation within the photographic medium and a deliberate rejection of its documentary function, technical precision and aesthetic conventions. Art critic and writer Alfred Ligocki (1913–1981) even described their work as ‘anti-photography’. In the early 1960s, following the death of his wife, Schlabs withdrew from artistic life. He returned to the field several years later, producing figurative work with elements of abstraction. Most of his later output continued to blur the lines between photography, graphic art and painting. This characteristic blending of media is visible in the works *Memory of Summer 4* and *Memory of Summer 5*, held in the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin and presented there during the 12th Festival of Contemporary Painting in 1980. Marlena Chybowska-Butler