In November 1981, this room in Gdansk, Poland, was thick with tension as Lech Walesa leaned back deep in thought. As leader of the Solidarity movement, he needed to make critical decisions on how to proceed after organizing huge workers' strikes that had swept Poland just three months earlier. "People were clamoring to peer in the windows," says renowned photojournalist Arthur Grace. "They were eager to learn the Solidarity movement's next move."

A month later, the Polish government imposed martial law and arrested Walesa. "This was a critical moment because no one knew Solidarity's survivability," says Grace. "These were uncharted waters." In 1989, under Walesa's guidance, Solidarity became an official political party—and a year later, he was elected president of Poland. Grace skillfully captures this moment of reflection by the country's future leader at a time of intense turmoil.

Arthur Grace's career spans three decades, and it includes covers of Life, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, Paris Match, and Stern. His award-winning photographs are in the permanent collections of the International Center of Photography in New York City and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.