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“Ecce Homo – The Person and the Face” - portraits of Auschwitz prisoners interpreted by Artur Kapturski
“Ecce Homo – The Person and the Face” is the title of an exhibition by Dr. Artur Kapturski, opened at the Auschwitz Museum hostel. The exhibition presents over 650 oil paintings, portraits of prisoners of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. The works are based on preserved registration photographs from the Museum Archives.
The exhibition is part of a long-term project. The artist intends to paint all surviving portraits of prisoners. The project is conceived not only as an act of remembrance for the victims, but also as a profound attempt at dialogue with the human being and human dignity.
“38,916 portrait photographs of prisoners have survived, including 31,969 images of men and 6,947 of women. The underlying idea of this project is to defend hamanity, identity and dignity. As an expression of care for the culture of remembrance, for the historical truth, this project is an attempt to reflect on its meaning for contemporary man,” wrote Artur Kapturski.
According to Andrzej Kacorzyk, Director of the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, by reaching for photographs created by the camp administration, the artist attempts to go beyond the world that surrounds us that we strive to protect: “It is the world of freedom, democracy, and values regarded as the foundation of modern civilization. By looking into the faces of the victims of the crimes of Nazi Germany, we can better understand the reality of a world shaped by contempt and violence.”
“The black-and-white portraits of prisoners clearly reveal sorrow, suffering, fear, and often despair. Both the photographs themselves and the paintings based on them should also serve as an impulse for deeper reflection on the present day and on the foundations of humanity. They prompt us to ask difficult questions about our moral choices, our reactions to the suffering and death of innocent people, and the falsehood, hypocrisy, and contempt for truth present in the public sphere today,” added Andrzej Kacorzyk.
According to Artur Kapturski, through the form of the project, the camp photographs—originally part of a brutal system of dehumanization and murder—take on an entirely new meaning and become portraits in the fullest sense of the word.
“When painting, I concentrate on a man as a person. I try to bring out their truth and integrate the personal dimension of the truth about Auschwitz into the life and culture of our times. In the light of this idea, photographic testimony of martyrdom and the taking away of a person's sovereignty by criminal German Nazism—presented in the eschatological artistic truth—emerges as a kind of ‘gallery of portraits of victims’ of the Nazi system,” the artist writes.
Artur Kapturski, born in 1979 in Radom, is a graduate of the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where he earned his diploma with distinction under Professor Grzegorz Bednarski. He has been affiliated with the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts for many years as a researcher and lecturer and received his doctoral degree in fine arts in 2017. The project "Ecce Homo – The Person and the Face" was initiated in 2009, during the artist’s first visit to the Auschwitz Memorial.
The exhibition at the former camp site holds particular significance for the artist, as it represents a symbolic return to the source—both of the tragedy experienced by the portrayed individuals and of the personal artistic path that led him to confront the subject of Auschwitz.
The exhibition is organized by the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and can be viewed at the Museum until 19 March 2026, during regular opening hours.
