Jewish Artistic Revival in Lower Silesia (Poland) 1945–1949: Art and Activity in the Light of Source Materials and Art Criticism
Jewish Artistic Revival in Lower Silesia (Poland) 1945–1949: Art and Activity in the Light of Source Materials and Art Criticism

Summary/Abstract: The situation of Jews in Poland in the first years after the war was especially difficult. The Jewish society as well as its cultural and material output were almost completely destroyed. However, as soon as the process of reconstruction of Jewish life was started thanks to the Central Committee of Polish Jews (CKŻP). Reconstruction of the artistic life was possible since 1945 as a result of the influx of repatriates from the USSR. Most of them were settled in the Lower Silesia. From 1945 to 1950 lived there circa 100 thousands Jews. The art was a domain of Jewish Association for the Promoting of Fine Arts [JAPFA, Pol. Żydowskie Towarzystwo Krzewienia Sztuk Pięknych, ŻTKSP] (1947) established by Józef Sandel in Warsaw. The Society worked with great success on gathering cultural heritage for future Jewish Museum and on organizing artistic environment and its activity not only in Warsaw, but in the Lower Silesia also. The activity mainly involved organization of exhibitions, artistic competitions, lectures, writing articles in newspapers. Thanks to these undertakings was organized a small circle of Jewish artist and a few exhibitions. Those events were described in local and country newspapers. Thanks to art critics and other archival sources we may get to know about tendencies of art at those times and its determinant factors in the new reality of Poland. The paper discuss the artistic environment, it’s activities and art of the particular painters and sculptors. It is based on the collection of Archives of Wroclaw, the Jewish Historical Institute and Polish and Jewish newspapers of the time.

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