Szczepkowski's individual style was formed in the 1920s. It was characterised by a decorative, simplified, geometrised form, referring to folk art, especially highlander woodcarving. Such an artistic proposal met with general approval in the interwar period, gaining the artist a wide circle of supporters and a number of official commissions. The exhibition of Christmas Shrine at the International Exhibition of Decorative Art in Paris in 1925 turned out to be a great success for the sculptor. It was awarded the Grand Prix, purchased by the French Government, and he was awarded the Legion of Honour.
After 1921, Szczepkowski lived in Warsaw. In 1922, he began teaching as the professor of modelling at the Municipal School of Decorative Arts, where he also served as director between 1925 and 1939. He was a member of the ‘Rytm’ group. Architectural sculpture became the domain of his work. The most outstanding works in this field include bas-reliefs on the facade of Bank Gospodarki Krajowej and on the facade of the Sejm building in Warsaw (both created between 1927 and 1928), and also the frieze for the Ateneum Theatre (1929, destroyed in 1939). In 1936, he created the Monument of Wojciech Bogusławski on Theatre Square, which was reconstructed in 1965 after being destroyed in 1944.
After World War II, the artist took part in the reconstruction of Warsaw’s monuments (including the Adam Mickiewicz Monument at Krakowskie Przedmieście). In the 1950s, he made projects of a complex of reliefs for the ‘Warszawa’ Steelworks and for the Ministry of Energy (reliefs depicting the four elements: Water, Fire, Air and Earth).
In 1978, the Jan Szczepkowski Museum was established in Milanówek near Warsaw.
Originally written in Polish by Piotr Szubert, The Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Feb 2003, translated into English by P. Grabowski, December 2020