Chris Niedenthal

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Chris Niedenthal at the Pol'and'Rock Festival 2018

Christopher Jan Niedenthal (born October 21, 1950 in London ) is a British- Polish photographer . He gained international fame through his recordings of everyday life behind the Iron Curtain .

Life

Niedenthal, whose parents fled to Great Britain in 1945 after Poland was relocated to the west , began taking photos at the age of eleven. After finishing school, he completed a three-year photography course at the London College of Printing . After he had already made several trips to East Central Europe in the 1960s , he went to Poland permanently in 1973 and worked from there for Newsweek, among others .

In 1980, Niedenthal was the first foreign photographer to document the events in the strike-occupied Danzig shipyard . His subsequent photo reports about the strike leaders Anna Walentynowicz and Lech Wałęsa , the opposition movement Solidarność and the events that followed during martial law in Poland are now considered important contemporary testimonies. The photographs smuggled out of the country were published in Spiegel and Time , among others .

In 1986, Niedenthal received the prestigious World Press Photo Award for his portrait of the Hungarian socialist leader János Kádár . After the change in the political system, Niedenthal, who had previously worked from Vienna for a few years , moved permanently to Poland. In 1998 he was granted Polish citizenship and in 2013 was awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta for his services to the Polish people .

Niedenthal is married to the Polish Germanist Karolina Niedenthal. Their son, Filip Niedenthal, is editor-in-chief of the Polish edition of Esquire magazine .

Web links

Commons : Chris Niedenthal  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Niedenthal, Chris
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Niedenthal, Christopher Jan (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Polish photographer
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH London