2You cannot talk about Polish film without mentioning Anatol Radzinowicz’s works.

His journey with film started when Polish cinematography revived after the World War II. He made his debut with set designs for the first post-war Polish feature film Forbidden Songs (1946) by Leon Buczkowski. For the next two decades, he created set designs for several dozen of Polish films: Five Boys from Barska Street (1953) by Aleksander Ford, King Matthew I (1957) by Wanda Jakubowska, The Career of Nikodem Dyzma (1956) by Jan Rybkowski and The Ashes (1965) by Andrzej Wajda. Radzinowicz’s outstanding scenography for the film The Silent Star contributed to the popularity of the novel it was based on in the United States of America – Stanisław Lem’s Astronauts.

Anatol Radzinowicz was called the master of “moody” scenography that created the atmosphere of time and place. His atmospheric scenography managed to fully express complicated mental states of the protagonists on screen (for example in How to Be Loved (1962) by Wojciech J. Has).

After the March events, he was deprived of the opportunity to work and was forced to leave the country. He lived in West Germany where he worked as a scenographer in ZDF television in Mainz until 1977. He died in 1994.

Projects of set designs by Anatol Radzinowicz are in the collection of the Museum thanks to Miss Zofia Radzinowicz.