INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL RECEPTION OF PROPAGANDIST EXHIBITIONS OF POLISH ART IN THE 1920S AND 1930S

Diana Wasilewska

doi:10.7494/human.2019.18.3.45

Abstract

The goal of this article is first of all to describe the reception of exhibitions of Polish interwar art in the foreign press. I pay closer attention to those of exhibitions that were most prestigious and acclaimed, such as the Venice Biennale, where representatives of Polish art were juxtaposed with other countries’ pavilions and judged in comparison to them. It was the time of the battle against the radical avant-garde, accused of bringing art to a state of impasse, stagnation, or even slow agony. Most exhibitions of Polish art abroad were organized by Mieczysław Treter (1883–1943) a philosopher and art historian, but also an exhibition curator and director of TOSSPO (the Association for the Promotion of Polish Art Abroad), who faced a very difficult task trying to fulfil his mission to promote Polish art through exhibitions. He had to take into account this artistic climate and the dynamically changing situation on the art market, and respond to the expectations of foreign critics, who would examine the art of particular nations with the focus on manifestations of national style. On the other hand, he had to consider the opinions of the Polish artists and critics as well as pressures from the ministry and Polish diplomats

Highlights

Repeated calls for greater control of machinery and mechanised progress, warnings against the diminishing level of spirituality, and encouragements to battle against artistic crisis through a return to tradition, humanity, and national identity – all these exhortations were recurring elements of the pan‐European turn against the radical avant‐garde, accused of bringing art to a state of impasse, stagnation, or even slow agony (Golan 1995: 85–105)
In the period in question, both the Italian central pavilion as well as the majority of national pavilions were dominated by the art of new classicism, actively marginalising the few examples of followers of the radical modernism (Donaggio 1988: 21–26)
Mieczysław Treter, a Polish art historian and celebrated critic who had been regularly visiting the Italian capital of art since 1907, had numerous opportunities to observe this artistic transformation1

Summary

Introduction

Repeated calls for greater control of machinery and mechanised progress, warnings against the diminishing level of spirituality, and encouragements to battle against artistic crisis through a return to tradition, humanity, and national identity – all these exhortations were recurring elements of the pan‐European turn against the radical avant‐garde, accused of bringing art to a state of impasse, stagnation, or even slow agony (Golan 1995: 85–105). Similar opinions were voiced by the Dutch press, which criticised organisers of the exhibition of Polish Art in Amsterdam (1929) for showing works that failed to display any typically ethnic features or express a national spirit, and instead spoke with an international “street jargon” (Treter 1933: 145).

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