On 18 November 2009, the collector’s edition Portfolio entitled “Polish Individualities“ was donated to the National Library by the PKO BANK POLSKI.
I came up with the idea of the portflio while talking to Maciej Beiersdorf, the director of the Museum of the History of Photography in Krakow, in January 2009.
The patron of the Portfolio is the National Library of Warsaw, supported by purchases made by Eco Classic; PKO BANK POLSKI, Poznań International Fair, as well as Epson, which supplied paper and ink and ProfiLab LFP Sp. z o.o., which gave us substantial discounts on printing.
The Portfolio and the exhibition presents 44 black/white portraits in the format 25,3x38cm, in frames 33,3x46cm, with the author’s comments.
The Portfolio was made in the bookbinding atelier of Jan and Jolanta Jakubiak, using 2,6mm acid-free cardboard MSK bought from Nielsen Polska, and is covered with a black cotton fabric glued with the wheat flour glue.
Basing on the 138 MB of the scanned negatives, the positives of the pictures were made under my supervision at ProfiLab Laboratorium Fotografii Profesjonalnej.
Products used by Epson: excellent white, acid-free and lignin-free Traditional Photo Paper 330g/m2, thickness 325µm; ink UltraChrome K3 with colour Vivid Magenta and printer Stylus Pro 11880.
Translation of the texts in the Portfolio:
My translators for 30 years.
Texts were set/printed by Slawomir Klimiuk’s print shop on Lessebo paper 150g/m2 and Scandia 2000 paper 300g/m2, ph 8,25 ± 0,25.
The author, who hopes that the initial number of 15 Portfolios will be increased to a 100, wishes to thank all his collaborators, in particular his wife Elisabeth, as well as all the institutions which have purchased the Portfolios, and leaves the rest under the care of museums and collectors.
Krzysztof Gierałtowski
Warsaw, 16 October 2009, before dawn.