Chris Niedenthal

On the 40th anniversary of martial law being imposed, TFN meets Chris Niedenthal, the man whose photography came to define it

Chris Niedenthal moved to Poland in 1973 where he became one of the very few foreign photographers managing to smuggle pictures abroad, documenting Polish reality for western media. Marcin Obara/TFN

It was during a surreptitious hunt for things to photograph that Niedenthal came across a scene outside the now-long-gone Moscow Cinema that would become his most famous photograph. An image that would soon ping around a world still trying to digest what was happening in Poland, and one that would become the defining image of martial law.

Identity of mystery woman photographed nearly 40 years ago uncovered following museum appeal

Taken in Wrocław by world-renowned photographer Chris Niedenthal, the photo shows a young, rosy-cheeked woman in a floral dress, leaning one arm against a concrete balcony as the other appears to brush back a lock of her raven hair. Originally published in a German magazine in 1982, the photo quickly became as iconic as the building itself.

Getting to the ‘art’ of the matter in Gdańsk

Reputed to be the world’s largest “gallery” of outdoor murals, over sixty now decorate the once tomb-like blocks of Zaspa drawing tourists, TV crews and journalists from around the globe.

New exhibition shows photojournalist Chris Niedenthal’s ‘rich and diverse’ Gdańsk

Taken between August and December 2018, Niedenthal said: “I absorbed every street or inconspicuous building, I talked about them with the inhabitants. Some of the photos I could only do thanks to the directions of taxi drivers.”

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