Warsaw 1927

From 12 August to 14 September 2026 the Warsaw Fotoplastikon showed stereoscopic photographs of Warsaw taken in the autumn of 1927, from the collection of Tomasz Bielawski.

The photographs covered the grand, best-known streets of the old city centre, but also parts of the city tourists rarely reach: Solec, Praga on the right bank of the Vistula, and Wołomin, a town north-east of Warsaw that was then a popular summer retreat.

Next to the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Square, the Grand Theatre, Iron Gate Square, big-city Marszałkowska Street and the Saxon Garden, the show set the poverty of Mariensztat and the shacks of Rybaki.

The exhibition was open daily except Tuesdays, 10:00-18:00.

Context

Photographs from this collection were first shown at the Fotoplastikon on 30 April 2022, when the venue reopened after a two-year closure; according to the announcement of 25 April 2022 by the Warsaw Rising Museum, which has looked after the Fotoplastikon since 2008, 48 photographs were shown then. The photographer is unknown - all that is known is that he was a Frenchman who visited Warsaw while touring Europe, and his pictures belong to a collection of 116 stereoscopic photographs that Tomasz Bielawski bought at online auctions. The museum did not say how many photographs were shown in 2026.

After the show

The museum has announced no further showing and no catalogue. On 15 September 2026 the “Current” and “Upcoming” pages of the Fotoplastikon’s exhibitions section listed no exhibition at all.

• 17th Photography Cabinet: Józef Czechowicz (1818-1888) - Photographer of Vilnius - another city in early photography: views of Vilnius from the 1870s, at the National Museum in Warsaw until 13 December 2026.
• Tracks in the Ruins of Warsaw: Rebuilding the Railway - Warsaw two decades later, in 1940s photographs from the National Digital Archives, inside a historic railway carriage in the open-air display of the Station Museum; the museum gives no closing date.
• 90/90. Around the Museum - 90 objects from the everyday work of the Museum of Warsaw, until 1 February 2027.

Museum profile: Warsaw Fotoplastikon.