More than 200 paintings, drawings, and sculptures were given to the earthquake-struck city by 135 Polish artists. Fifty years later, their works will be highlighted in the art world thanks to an exhibition in the Google virtual museum organized by the Polish Embassy in Skopje and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The collection donated by Poles is a living textbook of the first half of the 20th century. It’s a cross-section of the works of masters: professors that were significant for the post-war art scene and their students from the 40s and the beginning of the 50s.”
– says Polish Ambassador Jacek Multanowski.
This collection is not just an overview of various artistic genres and techniques, but also a story about the life of the Polish artistic bohemia of the 1960s, post-war Warsaw and Krakow as seen by the creator of avant-garde theatre Tadeusz Kantor, the novels of Marek Hłasko, and the protests against the Polish People’s Republic’s communist authorities.
“The art lasts, life goes by”
Among those who donated their works to Skopje in this act of solidarity with the city are Jerzy Nowosielski, Andrzej Strumillo, Tadeusz Dominik, Jozef Gielniak, Zbigniew Makowski, Jan Cybis, Czeslaw Rzepinski, Stanislaw Fijalkowski, Marian Malina, and Jan Tarasin. About 5000 works were donated from all over the world. The Polish collection numbers more than 100 prints, works made with the techniques of woodcutting, zincography, and lithography. There are also watercolours and gouaches on paper.
The collection is kept in the archives of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Arts, where only one Polish painting is currently exhibited; Kompozycja (Composition) by Henryk Stazewski, a pioneer of Polish avant-garde in the 1920s and 30s. The black and white artwork gains even more importance if the history of his other works is taken into account: nearly all of them were destroyed in World War 2. After the war, Stazewski’s creative output flourished again, making the composition donated to Skopje only a prologue to the richness of the museum's collection. Stazewski joined Warsaw's Klub Krzywego Kola (The Club of the Crooked Wheel) led by Marian Bogusz, who donated Kompozycja 20-59 (Composition 20-59) to the museum. Fellow club members Ewa Maria Lunkiewicz-Rogoyska and Rajmund Ziemski also sent works—Lunkiewicz-Rogoyska, a rare piece on a wooden board—Kompozycja czerwona (The Composition of the Red)— and Ziemski, his artwork Pejzaz (Landscape).