1934-1936
gelatin silver print, mounted on cardboard, 29 x 22.7 cm,
signed on the front of mount,
vintage print

This photograph depicts a drawing by Szukalski - a portrait of his Californian friend, biochemist Svend Lassen. Szukalski had left the drawing, among his other works, in his studio in Poland, claiming later that they were stolen by the communist government. The photographic version of the portrait was probably made in connection with the exhibition Szukalski and the Horned Tribe, Kraków (1936), where the drawing itself was shown (Item 380 in the exhibition catalogue). The photograph also remained in Poland, to be found years later in southern Poland. The artist considered the human face to be a `passport` to the personality and an `invitation` to explore it. He admired Lassen`s face and used it in one of his books, The Anthropolitical Motivations (1979), to illustrate the `Human Type`, as opposed to the `A-human Type`, as exemplified by Lenin, Marx and Hitler.