POLES APART – RECLAIMING POLISH LIVES AND VISUAL ARTS IN BRITISH ART HISTORY
Wednesday 9th April 2025, Location: University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD
Examples of such overlooked figures, going back to the 19th century, include Stanisława de Karłowska, Franciszka Themerson and Jorge Lewinski as well as the present generation of (Anglo-) Polish arists such as Andrzej Klimowski. Their life stories tie in with Poland’s stormy history, namely foreign occupation and/or warfare as well as religious and/or political oppression, resulting in ongoing waves of emigration and displacement. Their outputs often reveal cultural hybridity and outsider status, oscillating between Polish and British idenity, subject-matter and influences, and hence frequently eluding British as well as Polish art histories. The critical vicissitudes of Feliks Topolski RA are a case in point for the invisibility of the Polish cultural inflow to Britain; despite his wide-ranging and major contributions to British culture, Topolski has never had an art historical monograph or a retrospective exhibition at a British (or Polish) national museum. He was written out of Polish art history by the communist authorites who ostracised émigré artists.
Timed to coincide with the British Council’s ‘2025 UK-Poland Year of Culture’, the session will aim to reclaim the often complex cultural identities, biographies and outputs of arists of Polish heritage active on British soil. It will double as a call to action and a brainstorming session about how the British and (Anglo-)Polish communites of art historians, curators, critics and artists can join forces with academic publishers and cultural organizations in expanding the canon to fix the chronic underrepresentation of (Anglo-) Polish visual arts.
Conference Session Convenor:
Dr Julia Griffin, Anglo-Polish Art Historian and Curator
Facilitated Workshops Convenors:
Artist Ania Ruszkowski and Dr Julia Griffin
Academic Advisor:
Professor Jerzy Kolankiewicz
More about the AAH conference:
https://forarthistory.org.uk/conference/2025-annual-conference
Here is a link to the conference tickets:
Link to the full programme below:
Open House – Polish Underground Movement Study
Collecting Cultures: Central and Eastern Europe –
