Patriot / Jan SzczepkowskiAfter World War I, Warsaw was changing from a provincial city of the Russian Empire into the seat of the newly elected Polish authorities. As a capital city, it had the ambition to modernise itself in the European fashion. Polish elites wanted to make up for the civilisational backwardness caused by the Partitions and the Great War. New public buildings, associations, art unions emerged at a frenetic pace.At forty-two, Szczepkowski is already a mature artist with a considerable body of work. He creates in a modernist style of shaping matter, playing with light and shadow on sculpted structures. In 1918, like others, he allowed himself to be swept away by the enthusiasm of the state being formed from scratchHe understood that the new times needed a new style. he creates his new, original style from the woodcarving of the Podhale as an indigenous Polish art.Szczepkowski, born in 1878, had an excellent education and knowledge of sculptural craftsmanship. He encountered the highland aesthetic early in his artistic education in 1891, at the Vocational School of Wood Industry in Zakopane. In his later years at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow, studying under Alfred Daun and Konstanty Laszczka, he was influenced by the modernism of Rodin and Bourdelle. But his fascination with folk culture as a source of inspiration would return again in the interwar period. In doing so, Szczepkowski draws on the experience of the Cubists and Futurists he encountered during his travels abroad. He works to reduce shapes to geometric planes and creates clear compositional lines, to which he subordinates representations of figures, angels and fabrics.In 1924 i wins the competition for the interior of the shrine for the Polish Pavilion at the 1925 International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. It will be his greatest international success.Szczepkowski's shrine became a symbol of the exhibition and of Polish Art Déco, combining motifs of highland art with cubist drawing. He designed not only the altar but also the entire interior. Their joints, typical of highland carpentry, form an arch supported two bas-relief pillars with scenes of the procession of shepherds and the obeisance of the Three Magi.In 1929 Tadeusz Cieślewski concluded: “Szczepkowski's shrine, Dunikowski's Wawel heads, Skoczylas' and Kulisiewicz's woodcut are truly triumphant flowers on the reborn tree of Polish art”[1].In the 1920s and 1930s numerous commissions also came from the state. The bas-reliefs around the outer rotunda of the Polish Parliament, created in 1927-28, were entrusted to two artists: Jan Antoni Biernackiand Jan Szczepkowski.The frieze adorning the façade of the Sejm building is one of the artist's most prestigious works.The iconographic programme was dictated by the object's function – the artists were to depict various aspects of social life. Szczepkowski made seven reliefs: Creative Thought (Right and Left), Arts (Visual Arts), Sports (Defence Training), Ploughing, Harvest, Industry (Crafts) and Liberation. The artist designed, for each scene, rectangular slabs divided into three sections, filled with figures expressively sculpted with dynamic slanted lines.The frieze survived war-time destruction. Only the part designed by Biernacki suffered. Szczepkowski undertook its restoration after the war Another architectural challenge was the reliefs of the risalit of the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego. A closed competition was held in 1927 for the decoration of the risalit, which is the main entrance from Aleje Jerozolimskie. Leading artists of the inter-war period were invited to create sculptural designs: Jan Szczepkowski, Xawery Dunikowski, Antoni Miszewski, Stanisław Szukalski and Jan Antoni Biernacki.Szczepkowski offered a representation of man's taming of nature. Above the entrance, he designed three bas-reliefs, with figures and decorative ornamentation to match the architectural framework: Measures, Trees and Scales. On the east and west sides, he created vertical reliefs – Struggle with Space, Yield, Work, Earth Surface, Earth Interior and Space, Plough and Work. In these allegories of the elements and human potency, the figures are made using the bas-relief technique, while the abstract elements are recessed.Like many veterans of the Great War, participants in the 1920 battle against the Bolshevik invasion, and a lieutenant in the Polish Army in reserve, Jan Szczepkowski was an ardent admirer of Marshal Józef Piłsudski. He deeply experienced his death. He also took part in a competition for a monument to the Marshal in Warsaw's Plac na Rozdrożu, held in May 1935. His design envisaged two monuments – an arch facing Marszałkowska Street, inside which there were to be staircases directing viewers upwards, and a monument to the Marshal at the intersection of Marszałkowska Avenue and Ujazdowskie Avenue. The whole would be flanked by low-rise buildings. These plans were interrupted by the war.After World War II, Szczepkowski was an active artist almost until his death in 1964. He wanted to continue serving the state and society. He tried to find his way in the socialist reality. However, deep disappointment quickly set in.As the researcher Katarzyna Chrudzimska-Uhera writes[2], Szczepkowski never had an avant-garde nature. Avant-garde art, although often created by artists with leftist convictions, was elitist. Jan was an outstanding sculptor who lived to see the independence of his homeland. He wanted and knew how to reach out to his contemporaries, sharing with them the enthusiasm of creating a new state organism. His artistic voice was strong and audible. A statesman by conviction, he engaged his art in the service of the state and society.[1] Katalog pierwszej wystawy drzeworytów Stowarzyszenia Artystów Grafików „Ryt”, preface by T. Cieślewski, Warsaw 1929, p. 4.[2] K. Chrudzimska-Uhera, O rzeźbiarzu (nieco)zapomnianym, op. cit., p. 268.Author: Agnieszka Bebłowska Bednarkiewicz, curator of the exhibitionGraphic design: Izabela Jurczyk Studio DesignOrganizers: National Center for Culture, Ministry of Culture and National HeritageDuration: 19/10-12/11/2023The gallery is closed on November 1.