The Museum Żup Krakowskich Wieliczka invites you to the exhibition “The World of Glass Plates: Wieliczka in Photographs by Władysław Gargul”, which presents dozens of large-format photographs by Władysław Gargul. They show the Wieliczka Salt Mine, with its rich ground infrastructure, miners, old touristic route, old mine heads and mining works in the first half of the XX century. They are a small percentage of full collection, which contains more than 700 items. This number includes 278 photographs, postcards and glass negatives. All of them are memorabilia of the photographer Władysław Gargul, who lived in Wieliczka and Bochnia and are now in the collection of the Museum in Wieliczka.
Władysław Gargul (1883-1946) was born in Bochnia. At the age of 20 he had opened his first, self-reliant photo lab. He became famous as a photographer and inventor. He developed an electric lock for the camera, phonometer to regulate exposure time and a device for rapidly copying brome cards. He opened photographic labs in Zakopane, Brzesk and Vienna.
After that, he was probably attracted by the beauty of the Wieliczka Salt Mine. He first opened a seasonal photographic lab in Wieliczka and, after 1918, it became permanent. From that moment, he became one of the people photo-documenting Wieliczka, with its most valuable resource, the Wieliczka Salt Mine.
The oldest photographs from Wieliczka by Władysław Gargul come from around 1912. However, the most intense period of his photographic activity in Wieliczka was during the interwar period. He left behind a large group of glass negatives and photographs documenting the history of Wieliczka, including the activity of social and cultural organisations such as the Singers “Lyra”, Dramatic Cycle or Cyclist and Motorcyclists Club and a rich collection of commemorative photographs made in the background of Daniełowicz Pit for tourists, who visit the Wieliczka Mild Salt.
The exhibition the World of Glass Plates: Wieliczka in Photographs by Władysław Gargul is like an old photo album; it allows for moments of meditation and reflection on the variability of things.
You can see it in the Museum at the third level of the Mine from 28th June to 29th September 2013.
More information: Museum Żup Krakowskich Wieliczka
Photo © Władysław Gargul