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Photographers of Nowy Targ

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Stanisław Bochyński (1860-?)

Stanisław Bochyński was one of the first professional photographers who took occasional pictures and portraits of the town's inhabitants. He was born in Łąck in 1860, at the beginning of the 20th century he lived in Maniowy, where he run his photo lab with its branch in Nowy Targ. A painter, follower of Jan Matejko, the author of numerous paintings, mostly on religious themes that are found in many churches of Podhale. During renovation works of St. Anne church in Nowy Targ in 1903, together with Adolf Bochyński he made a polychromy of walls and ceiling, on which he painted St. Anne with little Mary and the resurrected Lord. In St. Katherine's church, in the St. Anthony's altar finial, there is a picture of the Assumption of Mary painted by him in 1899. In the same year he took a portrait photograph of the chairman of the Craftsmen Association in Nowy Targ. (Photo No. ??) Several other photographs taken by him perpetuated in the Museum of Podhale. Inter alia a portrait of a bourgeois family (Photo No. 297), plastered to a cardboard which is a decorative framework of the photograph and an advertisement of the photographer and the services he provided at the same time. A decorative inscription under the picture informs: „St. Bochyński. Nowy Targ. Maniowy”. In 1907 he took a commemorative photograph at the 25th anniversary of the Fire Department in Nowy Targ. (Photo No. 481, 482, 492). Some of them perpetuated on the original cardboards where the photograph and the decorative, secessionist ornament surrounding it make an artistic whole of which photo labs in Cracow and Vienna could as well be proud. One could suppose that the author of those compositions was Bochyński himself, who signed his photographs as a painter and a photographer.

Similar features in the drawing of the allegorical characters decorating the tableau presenting professors and high school graduates in 1912 (Photo No. 382) let us assume that the author of these photographs was also Bochyński. The whole seized in a floral ornament is additionally decorated with a picture of peaks of Tatra. These compositions give evidence to the great talent and taste of their author.

Józef Stefan Christ

At the beginning of the twentieth century on the corner of the Little Square (now Słowackiego Square) and the Szkolna Street, across from the central i.& r. post office, which was then situated in the old building of the Main School, Józef Stefan Christ opened his photo lab. Unfortunately, we do not know from where he arrived in Nowy Targ, the dates of his birth and death could not be found as well. In  „Sprawozdania Dyrektora c.k. gimnazjum” [ "Reports of the Director of the i.&r. High School"] we find that he conducted optional English classes in years 1908-1913 as an ancillary teacher for students of higher classes in the High School in Nowy Targ. On the photographs he took there is information that he run his photo lab also in Rabka. In 1913 he was awarded a medal and a diploma for his works on a photography exhibition in Berlin, organised by the Geavert company. Since 1912 he run his photo lab in Nowy Targ together with Edward Morawetz. In „Gazeta Podhalańska” one could find an advertisement of this photographic company.

„Awarded with a medal and a diploma, first artistic photo lab in Podhale, Józef Christ & Edward Morawetz in Nowy Targ, on Szkolna Street, provides a wide range of services every day, regardless of the weather. We offer also photo enlargements, diminuitions and reproductions. On request we provide our services also in the country.” 

In 1914 he travelled to the United States of America, supposedly to search for gold in Alaska. Not many pictures signed only by Christ perpetuated because since the beginning of his co-operation with Morawetz, their photographs were signed with a common trademark: „Christ and Morawetz. Nowy Targ”