Unknown (Nieznany)

Following World War II, Poland’s newly elected Communist government employed thousands of citizens in large-scale construction projects across the devastated country. In this image from Jerzy Lewczyński’s series Wawel Heads—named after an area of the city of Kraków that was for centuries a seat of monarchical power—the subject is obscured by the tool of his trade, a shovel. His identity reduced to his profession and usefulness to the state, the sitter embodies the countless workers whose labor rebuilt Poland, as well as Lewczyński’s observation that “the true effort of a human being is imperceptible in the so-called mass of unknown, aggrieved or lost people.”