29 September – 13 November 2022

 

The exhibition entitled The Brotherhood of St Luke. The Great Homecoming features seven paintings and four tapestries. These works share a story that began with a governmental decision on the design of the Polish Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The Pavilion’s Hall of Honour decoration was to present a consistent narrative of Poland’s past. Painters from the Brotherhood of St Luke (the so-called Łukaszowcy), centred around Tadeusz Pruszkowski (1888–1942), were commissioned to produce a series of scenes from Polish history. These were to be accompanied by tapestries showing the history of King Jan III Sobieski’s reign, designed by Mieczysław Szymański (1903–1990) and displayed two years earlier in Paris. The works were intended to convey the idea that Poland was not a fledgeling state, created by a recent decision of the superpowers, but had a long history with rich traditions of democracy and tolerance. In particular, they hailed back to Poland’s centuries of former glory as a European power.
 

After the outbreak of the Second World War, the Polish government could no longer finance the country’s participation in the New York World’s Fair. The further fate of the paintings and the tapestries was decided by Stefan Ropp (1892–1983), the Commissioner of the Polish Pavilion, who took possession of the works as compensation for his unpaid remuneration. In the end, Ropp donated them to Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY, where he was a lecturer. From that time on, the university displayed them in its library.

The legal controversy surrounding Stefan Ropp’s seizure of the works and their subsequent donation to Le Moyne College hindered negotiations between the Polish government and the university’s representatives regarding their return. But thanks to the commitment and goodwill of both sides, an agreement was finally reached. In July 2022, the paintings and tapestries were returned to Poland through the efforts of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and the Polish History Museum in Warsaw. In the future, they will be displayed as part of the permanent exhibition in the Polish History Museum’s new building at the Warsaw Citadel.

 

The circumstances under which the tapestries and the paintings were created overlap considerably. Most significantly, both series were developed by teams of artists, whose combined knowledge, skills and talents contributed to unique results. In both cases, the unusual working method was adopted due to extreme time constraints. These monumental works, envisioned to shape Poland’s image internationally, had to be completed in a matter of months.

The tapestries designed by Mieczysław Szymański were developed by the Ład and Inicjatywa artist cooperatives. The artists of Ład wove several textile sections in the kilim technique. In addition, they prepared a jacquard fabric on which historical scenes were then embroidered at Inicjatywa. Next, the individual elements were sewn together. In this form, the tapestry was exhibited at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, where it was awarded the Grand Prix. However, for display purposes in New York (1939), it was divided into four parts – and that is what we see today.

The paintings were the work of 11 artists who belonged to an art collective known as the Brotherhood of St Luke. Each painter chose a “specialization” – an aspect in which he excelled (such as faces, costumes or plants) – and only worked on these parts of a painting. As a result, two or three artists could work at each composition simultaneously. They would then move on to the next one and others would take their place. Therefore, all the works were consistently signed by 11 artists.

 

The paintings were executed in a realist manner as recommended by a special Academic Committee, chaired by the eminent historian Professor Oskar Halecki (1891–1973). The Committee selected seven events from Polish history and provided the artists with necessary information on the characters, events, architecture, costumes, customs and even vegetation to be depicted. The message imbued in the paintings was addressed to international audiences and contained references to Poland’s situation on the world stage in 1939.

The tapestries created two years earlier also had a propagandist dimension, with King Jan III Sobieski portrayed as the defender of Europe and the liberator of Vienna from a Turkish siege. However, they mixed historical events with anecdotes, and complex symbolism with genre scenes. The details of their composition emerged from a collaboration between the concept designer Mieczysław Szymański and the artists responsible for their execution: Maria Bujakowa (1901–1985) and Halina Karpińska-Kintopf (1902–1969). 
 

To their contemporaries, the paintings seemed “like greatly enlarged miniatures which could even be published in a richly decorated book” (Tytus Czyżewski) or – conversely – they “could well serve as patterns for tapestries” (Konrad Winkler). They were painted in tempera in order to impart “historicity” to the represented scenes and evoke the practices of the “old masters”. Their style is a reference to the masterpieces of the past, such as medieval illuminated manuscripts and the works of the Italian and Dutch Renaissance. Meanwhile, the tapestries effortlessly employ a variety of colours and textures to a painterly effect, boldly combining materials and techniques. Their use of geometric and stylized representations gives the works an avant-garde and modern feel.