On 19 December 2015 we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edith Piaf. To mark the occasion, we invite you to the exhibition “There was Piaf”,  which will open on 15 January 2016 at 6 p.m. in the University of Gdańsk’s Main Library.

The exhibition contains a wealth of items dedicated to this outstanding French singer from the private collection of Professor Mieczysław Gajos, French philologist at the University of Łódź and an aficionado and expert on the subject.

The exhibition lasts until 26 February 2016. Admission is free.

The guest of the evening, Professor Dr hab. Mieczysław Gajos, Director of Applied Linguistics and Didactics at the Department of Romance Philology at the University of Łódź, writes about his passion as follows:

Apart from my professional work, writing academic dissertations, monographs, articles, textbooks, dictionaries, workbooks and guides for teachers of the French language, my passion is discovering and promoting the culture of francophone regions. I have devoted a particular amount of time to the complex life and work of the outstanding singer Edith Giovanny Gassion, known as Edith Piaf. I have written a biography of Edith Piaf and plays about the life of the Parisian Sparrow. I have organised several exhibitions and given many lectures to familiarise the Polish public with the person and the output of this exceptional French singer, the 100th anniversary of whose birth we celebrated on 19 December 2015.

I am also co-founder of the Łódź Theatre and Cabaret group A.K.K. PLONS, for which I write texts and where I have been able to fulfil my artistic passions for many years.

In the University of Gdańsk’s Library, I now have the possibility to present my entire Edith Piaf collection for the first time. This includes publications in book form, albums, press publications, flyers, photograms, posters and phonographic collections, which contain a large number of vinyl records. The original scores to Edith Piaf songs published between 1935 and 1963 also deserve a mention.