We are deeply moved to announce that, after a year-long process, photographs from Zofia Rydet’s series Sociological Record have been officially acquired by the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
This marks one of the most significant moments in the international recognition of the artist’s work and an important milestone in the global presence of Polish photography. The inclusion of these works in the MoMA collection confirms the exceptional importance of Sociological Record as one of the most important documentary projects of the 20th century.

See Zofia Rydet in the MoMA collection

The exhibition “Zofia Rydet. Sociological Record,” curated by Clare Grafik and Karol Hordziej, was presented at The Photographers’ Gallery in London at the turn of 2025–2026, where it met with great success.
In the context of this exhibition, attention was also drawn to Zofia Rydet’s journey to the Balkans, when she visited Albania in 1960, at the last moment before the country became completely isolated from the rest of the world. During this trip, she took several hundred photographs documenting everyday life and the social landscape, including many portraits that later became part of the series “The Little Man” and “The Passing Time.”
Selected works were presented as an additional section of the exhibition at the Photography Museum in Shkodër, where they attracted significant public interest and became an important point of reference for local audiences.
About exhibition

“Rydet was always on the road, with a camera in her hand. For nearly three decades, she photographed people in their homes, still lives, building exteriors and landscapes. She also returned to the same houses several years after she first visited to document the transformation of rural Poland. The result – Sociological Record – is a monumental project and one of the most important achievements in 20th century Polish photography”.
Curators: Clare Grafik and Karol Hordziej
about the exhibition