THE ZOOLOGICAL ARCHIVE (1924-1939)
Wieslaw Rakowski (1903-1948) was a paleontologist, zoologist and curator of the nature museum in Poznan. He prepared, described and cataloged objects collected during excavations, expeditions and at the Poznan Zoo, before finally photographing them.
Only a small part of Rakowski’s glass plate negatives from this period, from 1924 to 1939, have been preserved and rediscovered in the archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences. They display prepared animals, bones and skulls, trophies from trips to Africa, anatomical abnormalities and other topics relevant to a scientific collection. But without context – Rakowski’s archiving and his scientific articles that he illustrated with his photos – a pile of almost surreal curiosities remains. Michal‚ Sita compiled THE ZOOLOGICAL ARCHIVE from Rakowski’s photographs and, with editor Maria Szyszkiewicz-Golis, made the book Wieslaw Rakowski – Photographs 1924-1939.
Photographs by Wieslaw Rakowski, curated by Michal Sita. Copyright The Institute for Agricultural and Forest Environment (IAFE) of Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland.
