The album Wor­kers — the first publication of the Edward Dwur­nik Foun­dation — is a monographic study of the pain­ting cycle by Edward Dwur­nik, com­prising 260 works created between 1975 and 1991. Its main protagonists are the titular Wor­kers — iden­tified by the pain­ter with the entire Polish nation — oppres­sed by the Soviet regime and resisting it. On large canvases, Polish women and men, the same individuals por­trayed by Dwur­nik in the paral­lel monumen­tal cycle Ath­letes, take to the streets, raising ban­ners and fists with freedom slogans on their lips. Dwur­nik actively com­ments on and documents the tur­bulent times of the birth of Solidarity and mar­tial law, por­traying its heroes and com­memorating the vic­tims. However, he does not com­pose a celebratory anthem — along­side the dramatic events, the artist depicts the dan­gers of devotional entan­glement in religion and min­dless involvement in nationalist dogmas. Created over 16 years, the series is highly diverse. It inc­ludes expres­sive aesthetic images in the spirit of Western European transavant-​garde, dreamy depic­tions full of poetic melan­choly and sorrow, elaborate grand allegories, and referen­ces and quotes from other artists and literature.

The book has 614 pages and over 350 reproduc­tions of pain­tings, drawings, sket­ches, and archival photographs.