The artist arrived again in Poland in 1936, supported financially by the Minister of the Treasury. He had finally found a patron who rented him a studio and got him commissions satisfying his artistic pursuits. He completed several sculptures (most notably the monument of Bolesław Chrobry), decorated the façade of the Silesian Museum building and a local government building in Katowice. At the time, he also put forward the idea of erecting a sculptural-architectural venue called Duchtynia which was to be located at the bottom of the Wawel Dragon's Den and was to become a place of worship of the Slavs.
Szukalski came to Poland with all his belongings encouraged by the prospect of building a museum devoted to his art. However, the idea was cut short by the Siege of Warsaw in 1939. He managed to escape to America to live in California with his wife, but his entire life's work was lost, either bombed or stolen during the war. He spent the rest of his life in obscurity, obsessively working on a theory that all human culture was derived from a single origin on Easter Island after the biblical Deluge of Noah, and that the language of these original societies was similar to Polish.
During the last years of his 75-year-long career Szukalski’s major projects were Prometheus (1943) designed for Paris in homage to the French partisans and a gigantic and complex structure that he wished the U.S. would give France to reciprocate for the Statue of Liberty – the Rooster of Gaul (1960). In 1971, his work and existence were rediscovered by Glenn Bray, who became his patron and who later issued two publications: Troughful of Pearls (1980) and Inner Portraits (1982). Szukalski died in Burbank, California on 19th May 1987. A year later, his and his wife's ashes were scattered at Rano Raraku, the sculptors' quarry on Easter Island, by his close friends.
In December 2018, a documentary called Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Irek Dobrowolski was released worldwide on the streaming service Netflix. Praised by critics, it was an attempt to bring a new and much larger audience to the little-known artist.
Autor: Piotr Szubert, Academy of Fine Art in Warsaw, February 2003, ed.&transl. GS, April, 2016; additions by AZ, Dec 2018