DOI issue:
Nr. 3
DOI article:Artykuły
DOI article:Szablowska, Anna Agnieszka: "Salon odrzuconych" I Ogólnopolskiej Wystawy Plastyki w 1950 r
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71009#0617
„Salon odrzuconych" I Ogólnopolskiej Wystawy Plastyki w 1950 R.
605
«Salon de Refuses» of the First National Exhibition of
Fine Arts in 1950
In Poland, 1949 was the year when the artistic
circles debated specifying the guidelines of Socialist
Realism, a unique creative concept conceived by
Soviet ideologists. Fine arts were incorporated into
the process of consolidating class awareness and
arousing positive emotions to the apparatus of
Communist regime, and so they were also subdued
to the Party control. The Ministry of Culture and Art
established the Central Office for Art Exhibitions
(CBWA), responsible for holding planned fine arts
displays, in compliance with the ideological
programme. The highest ranking were the National
Exhibitions of Fine Arts (OWP), which in 1950-54
constituted a kind of a platform for the valid doctrine
and allowed to verify it on a mass scale. Their
centralized character allowed for the political
correctness control of the works, while conferences
and debates conducted at the same time, provided an
opportunity for a systematic indoctrination of artists
and critics. The article's focus is on the First OWP,
decisive for the Socialist Realism breakthrough in
1949-50, yet at the same time full of contradictions
and inconsistencies resulting from political and time
pressures. Despite hard trials the principles of the
tendency had not as yet been clearly formulated,
while the popular reform of artistic education in the
Soviet spirit was only awaiting its launch in the
subsequent academic year. Therefore, the First
National Exhibition of Fine Arts was basically
a confrontation with the existing until then variety of
artistic approaches, based on the works executed
by representatives of the elder and middle-aged
generation of artists. Forced to abandon their
previous artistic practises, they sought for different
ways in order to fulfil the social tasks of art, however
the results of their efforts had little to do with the
Soviet Socialist Realism line. Its adaptation was
most «reluctantly» conducted in painting, which,
being the leading discipline in fine arts, at the same
time constituted the most challenging territory for
the doctrine promoters. Holding an exhibition
complying with the Kremlin instructions in this
respect and prepared within six months required a
centralized approach. For the purpose, a separate
academic organization was created, named the State
Institute of Art, in which ideological transformations
in various artistic disciplines were coordinated. One
of the main tasks of the organization related to fine
arts was a methodical photographic record of the
official exhibitions conducted since the First OWP
in 1950 until the official end of the domination of
Socialist Realism. Preserved intact, it currently
forms part of the Collection of Photographs and
Survey Drawings at the Institute of Art of the Polish
Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Being almost a full
record of the artistic output of the Stalinist period, it
constitutes a rare case of a definite phenomenon in
art having its own complete archive created for the
needs of one institution. In the recent years, the set
has been digitalized, rescuing from oblivion almost
7,000 negatives, glass in the majority of cases. It
contains the «black-and-white» chronicle of Polish
Socialist Realism, which being so extensive, opens
the way for research into the peculiarities of the first
half of the 1950s. Furthermore, it reveals the
organizational background and political mechanisms
ruling Polish artistic life over that challenging time.
The most thorough and comprehensive entry is
related to the first of such exhibitions in 1950,
possibly mainly due to its largely «pilot» and
experimental character. It contains 809 photos,
though it is known that 628 works were accepted.
The remaining photos, amounting to 181, constitute
an additional «informal» record of the Exhibition,
including, among others, the titular «Salon de
Refuses», created as a result of painting-related
ideological arguments. It is made up of some dozens
photographs of the paintings submitted for the First
National Exhibition of Fine Arts, which did not
match the valid criteria according to the qualifying
committee; the documentation must have been meant
to serve some «internal» research and teaching goals,
while also creating the ideological superstructure for
the artists. The forgotten negatives, today provided in
an accessible digitalized format, constitute unique
iconographic material which allows a wider picture of
the mechanisms running the Socialist Realism
campaign from the turn of 1949-50. Thanks to
conscientiously kept entries into inventory books,
we can recreate the full list of the painters who were
not «cleared» for display in 1950. Here are their
names in alphabetical order: Marian Bogusz (1920-
80), Tadeusz Brzozowski (1918-87), Maria Dawska
(1909-93), Mieczysław Dyląg (1917-2004), Zdzi-
sław Głowacki (1919-87), Bolesław Gozdawa-Pia-
secki (1912-80), Zofia Hertz-Łukańska (1915-83),
Mie-czysław Jurgielewicz (1900-83), Włodzimierz
Kliszko (?-?), Zbigniew Kowalewski (1914-2000),
605
«Salon de Refuses» of the First National Exhibition of
Fine Arts in 1950
In Poland, 1949 was the year when the artistic
circles debated specifying the guidelines of Socialist
Realism, a unique creative concept conceived by
Soviet ideologists. Fine arts were incorporated into
the process of consolidating class awareness and
arousing positive emotions to the apparatus of
Communist regime, and so they were also subdued
to the Party control. The Ministry of Culture and Art
established the Central Office for Art Exhibitions
(CBWA), responsible for holding planned fine arts
displays, in compliance with the ideological
programme. The highest ranking were the National
Exhibitions of Fine Arts (OWP), which in 1950-54
constituted a kind of a platform for the valid doctrine
and allowed to verify it on a mass scale. Their
centralized character allowed for the political
correctness control of the works, while conferences
and debates conducted at the same time, provided an
opportunity for a systematic indoctrination of artists
and critics. The article's focus is on the First OWP,
decisive for the Socialist Realism breakthrough in
1949-50, yet at the same time full of contradictions
and inconsistencies resulting from political and time
pressures. Despite hard trials the principles of the
tendency had not as yet been clearly formulated,
while the popular reform of artistic education in the
Soviet spirit was only awaiting its launch in the
subsequent academic year. Therefore, the First
National Exhibition of Fine Arts was basically
a confrontation with the existing until then variety of
artistic approaches, based on the works executed
by representatives of the elder and middle-aged
generation of artists. Forced to abandon their
previous artistic practises, they sought for different
ways in order to fulfil the social tasks of art, however
the results of their efforts had little to do with the
Soviet Socialist Realism line. Its adaptation was
most «reluctantly» conducted in painting, which,
being the leading discipline in fine arts, at the same
time constituted the most challenging territory for
the doctrine promoters. Holding an exhibition
complying with the Kremlin instructions in this
respect and prepared within six months required a
centralized approach. For the purpose, a separate
academic organization was created, named the State
Institute of Art, in which ideological transformations
in various artistic disciplines were coordinated. One
of the main tasks of the organization related to fine
arts was a methodical photographic record of the
official exhibitions conducted since the First OWP
in 1950 until the official end of the domination of
Socialist Realism. Preserved intact, it currently
forms part of the Collection of Photographs and
Survey Drawings at the Institute of Art of the Polish
Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Being almost a full
record of the artistic output of the Stalinist period, it
constitutes a rare case of a definite phenomenon in
art having its own complete archive created for the
needs of one institution. In the recent years, the set
has been digitalized, rescuing from oblivion almost
7,000 negatives, glass in the majority of cases. It
contains the «black-and-white» chronicle of Polish
Socialist Realism, which being so extensive, opens
the way for research into the peculiarities of the first
half of the 1950s. Furthermore, it reveals the
organizational background and political mechanisms
ruling Polish artistic life over that challenging time.
The most thorough and comprehensive entry is
related to the first of such exhibitions in 1950,
possibly mainly due to its largely «pilot» and
experimental character. It contains 809 photos,
though it is known that 628 works were accepted.
The remaining photos, amounting to 181, constitute
an additional «informal» record of the Exhibition,
including, among others, the titular «Salon de
Refuses», created as a result of painting-related
ideological arguments. It is made up of some dozens
photographs of the paintings submitted for the First
National Exhibition of Fine Arts, which did not
match the valid criteria according to the qualifying
committee; the documentation must have been meant
to serve some «internal» research and teaching goals,
while also creating the ideological superstructure for
the artists. The forgotten negatives, today provided in
an accessible digitalized format, constitute unique
iconographic material which allows a wider picture of
the mechanisms running the Socialist Realism
campaign from the turn of 1949-50. Thanks to
conscientiously kept entries into inventory books,
we can recreate the full list of the painters who were
not «cleared» for display in 1950. Here are their
names in alphabetical order: Marian Bogusz (1920-
80), Tadeusz Brzozowski (1918-87), Maria Dawska
(1909-93), Mieczysław Dyląg (1917-2004), Zdzi-
sław Głowacki (1919-87), Bolesław Gozdawa-Pia-
secki (1912-80), Zofia Hertz-Łukańska (1915-83),
Mie-czysław Jurgielewicz (1900-83), Włodzimierz
Kliszko (?-?), Zbigniew Kowalewski (1914-2000),