DOI Artikel:
Yass-Alston, Agnieszka: Maurycy Gottlieb - in search of identity
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.40996#0119
Maurycy Gottlieb.
In Search of Identity
How deeply I wish to eradicate all prejudices against my people!
How avidly I desire to uproot the hatred enveloping the oppressed
and tormented nation and to bringpeace between the Poles and the Jews,
for the history ofboth people is a chronicie of grief and anguish!
— Maurycy Gottlieb, Romę 18791
One wonders what purpose there can be for an exhibition catalog in the second
decade of the 2ist century of a well-known artist, whose first retrospective one-man
exhibition took place almost a century earlier.
In 1932 a commemorative exhibition on Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879) organ-
ized in the midst of anti-Semitic events was initiated by Jewish artists and intel-
lectuals living in Kraków motivated by a desire to show and educate the public
about a great Jewish artist. At the time Leo Schonker, a Jewish painter wrote: “We
believe that Gottliebs exhibit and spirit will help into brotherhood coexistence
and bright futurę”.2 Rudolf Bereś was the driving force behind that exhibit.3 One
of the very innovative approaches to exhibitions of the time was creating an ac-
companying publication with a comprehensive artists biography and a catalog of
the artworks with details including media, size and history of ownership; private
and institutional. The exhibition was comprised of ninety-two artworks by Got-
tlieb including several works located in Poland, however a few large canvases from
Austria, Germany and Russia were missing. Only some of these are included in
the “Maurycy Gottlieb. In the Search of Identity” exhibition catalog under review
here.
Subseąuently in 1991 Nehama Guralnik took on the enormous challenge of
organizing “In the Flower of Youth. Maurycy Gottlieb 1856-1879” a travelling ex-
hibition that was shown at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (May 16 - July 20, 1991),
the National Museum in Warsaw (Aug. 19 - Oct. 20, 1991) and at the Jiidisches
Museum, Frankfurt am Main (Nov. 27,1991 - Feb. 23,1992). Guralnik, a curator at
the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, traveled all over the world to gather Gottliebs artworks
1 M. Waldman, Maurycy Gottlieb. Biografja Artystyczna, Kraków 1932, p. 67.
2 L. Schonker, Maurycy Gottlieb, jako Żyd i Polak. Na marginesie projektowanej wystawy
pamiątkowej, “Nowy Dziennik”, 1931, no 295, p. 8.
3 For morę information on Rudolf Bereś: A. Yass-Alston, Rebuilding a Destroyed World: Rudolf
Bereś - A Jewish Art Collector in Interwar Kraków, “Scripta Judaica Cracoviensis”, 2015, vol. 13,
s. XXX.
modus
prace z historii sztuki
xvi, 2016
0
AGNIESZKA
YASS-ALSTON
RECENZJE I OMÓWIENIA
117
In Search of Identity
How deeply I wish to eradicate all prejudices against my people!
How avidly I desire to uproot the hatred enveloping the oppressed
and tormented nation and to bringpeace between the Poles and the Jews,
for the history ofboth people is a chronicie of grief and anguish!
— Maurycy Gottlieb, Romę 18791
One wonders what purpose there can be for an exhibition catalog in the second
decade of the 2ist century of a well-known artist, whose first retrospective one-man
exhibition took place almost a century earlier.
In 1932 a commemorative exhibition on Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879) organ-
ized in the midst of anti-Semitic events was initiated by Jewish artists and intel-
lectuals living in Kraków motivated by a desire to show and educate the public
about a great Jewish artist. At the time Leo Schonker, a Jewish painter wrote: “We
believe that Gottliebs exhibit and spirit will help into brotherhood coexistence
and bright futurę”.2 Rudolf Bereś was the driving force behind that exhibit.3 One
of the very innovative approaches to exhibitions of the time was creating an ac-
companying publication with a comprehensive artists biography and a catalog of
the artworks with details including media, size and history of ownership; private
and institutional. The exhibition was comprised of ninety-two artworks by Got-
tlieb including several works located in Poland, however a few large canvases from
Austria, Germany and Russia were missing. Only some of these are included in
the “Maurycy Gottlieb. In the Search of Identity” exhibition catalog under review
here.
Subseąuently in 1991 Nehama Guralnik took on the enormous challenge of
organizing “In the Flower of Youth. Maurycy Gottlieb 1856-1879” a travelling ex-
hibition that was shown at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (May 16 - July 20, 1991),
the National Museum in Warsaw (Aug. 19 - Oct. 20, 1991) and at the Jiidisches
Museum, Frankfurt am Main (Nov. 27,1991 - Feb. 23,1992). Guralnik, a curator at
the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, traveled all over the world to gather Gottliebs artworks
1 M. Waldman, Maurycy Gottlieb. Biografja Artystyczna, Kraków 1932, p. 67.
2 L. Schonker, Maurycy Gottlieb, jako Żyd i Polak. Na marginesie projektowanej wystawy
pamiątkowej, “Nowy Dziennik”, 1931, no 295, p. 8.
3 For morę information on Rudolf Bereś: A. Yass-Alston, Rebuilding a Destroyed World: Rudolf
Bereś - A Jewish Art Collector in Interwar Kraków, “Scripta Judaica Cracoviensis”, 2015, vol. 13,
s. XXX.
modus
prace z historii sztuki
xvi, 2016
0
AGNIESZKA
YASS-ALSTON
RECENZJE I OMÓWIENIA
117