Collections
Artur Nacht-Samborski and his “path from himself to painting”
Fifty years have passed since the death of Artur Nacht-Samborski (1898-1974), and the painter still does not allow himself to be forgotten. He returns in the successive exhibitions presenting his work and in texts dedicated to him. "Nacht-Samborski – one of the most interesting, enigmatic, and still undeciphered Polish painters of the 20th century. As if the name itself, with its nocturnal, dark symbolism, suggested some kind of secret," wrote Krystyna Czerni ("Kamuflaż – tajemnica Artura Nachta-Samborskiego" [Camouflage - the mystery of Artur Nacht-Samborski"], in: Czerni, K., Rezerwat sztuki. Tropami artystów polskich XX wieku, Kraków 2000, p. 21). Despite many beautiful, insightful texts and subsequent exhibitions, it seems that the 'mystery' surrounding both the painter and his work is still woven from a thick, coarse thread.
The monographic exhibition prepared by Maria Gołąb at the National Museum in Poznań remains the most important point of reference in the analysis of Nacht-Samborski's work, a valuable source for the study of the painter's life and an inspiration for subsequent shows ('Artur Nacht-Samborski 1898-1974', exhibition catalogue at the National Museum in Poznań). From time to time, however, new source materials appear, both artistic and archival, such as those that have found their way into the collection of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, allowing us to complement and broaden our knowledge of the life and work of the great artist.
Photographs
In addition to paintings and drawings (more on that later), the POLIN Museum has recently received several dozen photographs by Artur Nacht-Samborski: official, representative ones (such as the photographs of Benedict Jerzy Dorys), ID photos from various years, and leisurely holiday stills, portraits, and photographs of him and his friends (in Sopot and Mazury) or with his family (in Sopot after the war and in Israel in the 1960s). Pre-war and post-war. In photographs from his youth, especially those from the south of France, we see a beautiful, elegant young man in a white suit. Those from the last years of his life show a still refined (almost always in shirt and tie) elderly gentleman with slightly thinning hair. On (almost) all of them we can see humour and discreet irony, warmth and cordiality lurking in the corners of the eyes. His friends remembered him as such: "Artek – that's what those close to him called him – was not an egocentric, he leaned towards life, was open to the affairs of others. He was referred to as the Rabbi because it was well known that when it came to seeking advice on some important and difficult issue, there was no better advisor than him. Thanks to his tact and wisdom, he was able to defuse all sorts of conflicts in the artistic community, he helped the young to find their creative path, and he encouraged the old while mitigating their resentments. […] His attitude to life and his enormous charm won him numerous friends in several generations. […] He himself, despite his advanced age, remained physically and spiritually young until the last moment, literally, as he died suddenly" (Dominik Horodyński, 'Artek', quoted after the catalogue cited above).
However, this precious photograph collection paradoxically creates a wall between us (the audience) and the artist. It is as if the painter himself was hiding behind a stately professorial outfit and an endearing smile.
Only in his works we can sometimes see who he was and what he experienced.
Biography – the beginnings of creativity
In the life of Artur Nacht-Samborski, one of the most outstanding Polish painters of the 20th century, love of art, family and friends became intertwined with the Holocaust. The artist was born in Kraków, in the respected Nacht family. His father Julian Nacht (1876-1966) owned a haberdashery and clothing shop at 5 Stradom Street ('In the shop of Józef Nacht, Krakow, 5 Stradom Street, before 1939'). Her mother Sara, née Weindling (1877-1941), ran the household and was responsible for the upbringing of her children Arthur, Stefania (Charlotte; secundo voto Wachs, 1899-1995), Marek (1902-1968), and Róża (1905-1941). The house was affluent and, according to the memoirs, religious, but at the same time polonised (Artur studied, among other things, at St Anne's Gymnasium in Kraków) and open to the world.
In 1917, Arthur began his studies at the local Academy of Fine Arts, studying with e.g., Wojciech Weiss. In 1920 he went to Berlin, where he came into contact with the avant-garde and Expressionism and became friends with Jankiel Adler, Sigmund Menkes, and Alfred Aberdam. The latter two invited Nacht to Lviv for a joint exhibition. Opened on 26 August 1923, it resonated with the local press (see J. Malinowski, B. Brus-Malinowska, W kręgu Ecole de Paris, malarze żydowscy z Polski, Warsaw 2007, p. 131). Few works by the artist survive from these years. One of the preserved ones is a linocut matrix belonging to the collection of the POLIN Museum, (inv. no. MPOLIN-M1452). This is a rare, if not the only trace of artistic exploration in the field of printmaking. The man's casual pose, pipe, and bowler hat evoke a painterly analogy, the 'Pan w meloniku' (circa 1923) monotype from the collection of the Museum of Art in Łódź (inv. no. MS/SN/RYS/1550/2).
"When we were young!"
After returning to Kraków in 1923. Nacht continued his studies at the Academy, this time with Felicjan Szczęsny Kowarski. He made friends with colleagues from the neighbouring studio of Józef Pankiewicz, including Hanna Rudzka-Cybisowa (1897-1988) and Jan Cybis (1897-1972), who were close to him to the end of his life. In order to go to Paris for further studies, the young people founded the Paris Committee. This is how the Kapist group (from the Committee's abbreviation: K.P.) came into being. In addition to Cybis and Nacht, it included Józef Czapski (1896-1993), Tadeusz Piotr Potworowski (1898-1962), Zygmunt Waliszewski (1897-1936), Dorota Berlinerblau-Seydenmann (1898-1943), Seweryn Boraczok (1898-1975), Józef Jarema (1900-1974), Janusz Strzałecki (1902-1983) and Marian Szczyrbuła (1899-1942). They arrived in Paris in early September 1924. They quickly found their way into the artistic circles of the French capital. The 'Paris-Kraków Montparnasse Ball', which took place on 22 February 1925 has passed into legend (the collection includes a photograph of the group members with the "Montparnasse Ball" poster in the background). POLIN's collection also includes more than a dozen post-war prints of photographs from the Kapists' stay in La Ciotat, on the Mediterranean coast (in the summer of 1925). Although they have been reproduced many times in the catalogues of exhibitions devoted to the Kapists (e.g., in the catalogue of the exhibition at the National Museum in Kraków: S. Krzysztofowicz-Kozakowska, 'Gry barwne. Komitet Paryski 1923-1939'), it is only in a photograph from the POLIN Museum archives that we find the words "Kiedy byliśmy młodzi! Plener W La Ciotat, 1925 rok” ("When we were young! Open-air session in La Ciotat, 1925"), witten by one of the artists. Their originals (the friends were most often photographed by Dorota Berlinerblau) have been preserved in the archive of Hanna Rudzka-Cybisowa holding almost 2000 specimens (now in the collection of the Museum of Kraków; the Kapists' open-air sessions were described by M. Chrzanowska-Foltzer).
The young male and female painters' stay in Paris – longer than they had planned and extremely intensive – culminated in two exhibitions: one at the Zak Gallery in Paris (1930) and the other at the Moss Gallery in Geneva (1931). Both were successes, with many of the works presented being sold. A photograph of the wall on which Nacht's paintings were hung survives from the exhibition at Galerie Zak. This interesting photograph nade by Stefan Londyński (Shmuel Yakir, 1889-1956, a photographer and poet well-known in Montparnasse), gives us an insight into the artist's work at the time, already strongly distinguished from that of other painters of the K.P. group. Joanna Pollakówna notes that Nacht "blends into the Kapist group in an astonishingly harmonious way. And yet he will remain separate, very separate" (J. Pollakówna, 'Myśląc o obrazach'). Critics often emphasise this 'singularity', distinguishing his work from the Kapist idiom. Although he painted mainly portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and nudes, his painting focused on issues of form and colour, captured affectively, in expressive form and a refined colour range. In 1920, he wrote from Berlin to his professor at the Academy, Wojciech Weiss: "I paint a lot now, I try above all to find the shortest and easiest way from myself to the painting" (Letter from A. Nacht to W. Weiss, 9 March 1920). He followed this principle throughout his creative life.
In his paintings from the 1930s one can see a fascination with the art of the past, not so much with its form, but rather with the Old Masters' treatment of their themes. Throughout the years, the image of the naked female body invariably recurred in his favourite themes. Probably painted in Paris, the sensual, even risque 'Kidnapping of Europe' (MPOLIN-M207) is an example of such a realisation.
"Get to the finish line in as big a bunch as possible"
Unlike his fellow Kapists who returned to Poland in the early 1930s, Nacht remained in France until January 1939. His return to Kraków came as a surprise even to his family. His nephews, Hanna and Roman Wachs, recalled: "Artek was absolutely sure that a world upheaval was coming, that the Jews were the first to be persecuted in Hitler's plans and that at such a time 'we must be together'. And because he did not form an intimate family of his own (he never married), so 'being together' meant being with his father, mother and siblings" (H. Sachs, R. Wachs, 'Wujek Artek. Traces of a family biography' in: 'Artur Nacht-Samborski. Dotyk abstrakcji / A Touch of Abstraction').
Nacht survived the Second World War in the country. First in occupied Lviv, where the whole family arrived. The painter took part in Soviet artistic life, also participating in the exhibition of the Union of Artists of Western Ukraine in Moscow in late 1939 and early 1940, although, as Stanisław Teiyssere recalls, he remained true to his artistic choices. At a meeting with Soviet artists in Moscow, when Polish artists were accused of succumbing to French influence, he said: "Yes, I admit it. I am influenced by 20th century French art. […] Just as the leading art at this moment, in the 20th century, is French art. To my Soviet colleagues, on the other hand, I must say that I have been looking at your contemporary paintings here, at your exhibition to which you took us. This is – forgive me – just the mid-19th century German art" (talk by Jarosław Maszewski, 'Jak braliśmy Sowietów' ['How we took the Soviets']).
The situation changed completely after the Third Reich invaded the Soviet Union. From then on, the Nacht family (the artist's mother died in 1941), being Jews, lived under constant threat of death. They survived (we do not know how) the pogrom in Lviv, which began even before the German army entered the city on 30 June 1941, and in which more than 4,000 Jews (men, women and children) were murdered. The artist's sister Rose and her husband died at the end of 1941. The family found themselves in the ghetto. Hanna Sachs and Roman Wachs recall that Artur "did have a bed there and showed up from time to time, but he generally stayed outside the ghetto, with his Polish artist friends". It was friends - Józefa and Marian Wnuk, Janusz and Jadwiga Strzałecki, Stanisław Teyssere and his wife Maria (some of whom were active in the "Żegota" Council to Aid Jews, all of whom were awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nationshttps://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/historie-pomocy/zalozyli-u-nas-oddzial-lwowski-zegoty-historia-mariana-i-jozefy-wnukow;
https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/historie-pomocy/zostalam-otoczona-dobrocia-miloscia-i-troska-historia-rodziny-strzaleckich 2) - who helped Nacht and members of his family to get to Warsaw. The painter, the eldest of the siblings, was the first to set off. He went to Kraków to extract the family savings that allowed him to survive in Warsaw in the early days. Later, when funds ran out, both Nacht and the family relied on the help of Żegota. By that time, the painter already held a Kennkarte in the name of Stefan Ignacy Samborski, issued on the basis of a false baptismal certificate (he had received it on 29 September 1942 at the Roman Catholic St. Alexander Parish Church in Warsaw), enabling him to receive registration in rented rooms. He also always carried with him the identity card of the Trade Union of Polish Artists in the name of Stefan Samborski (after the war he officially added it to his family name in 1956). He wrote to Zygmunt Menkes after the war: "I was helped a lot by Strzałecki and Wnukowa (née Bruner), a cool and brave woman, the sculptor's wife, and Helena [Berli], wonderful in her enthusiasm and help" (quoted in the 1999 catalogue of the exhibition at the MNP). He himself also helped others who lived in constant danger. During the occupation, he showed prudence, determination, and cold blood, which were decisive for his survival and ability to save a part of his family. "His confidence never left him", recalled his nephew and niece. "Someone tried to blackmail and Artek only told him: 'Leave me alone or I will harm you, I have contacts in the Polish organisation. The guy never returned." Hiding in Warsaw, using so-called Aryan papers, Nacht initially led an almost "normal" life, frequenting cafés, meeting with friends, including Jan Cybis, who came to Warsaw with his family in the autumn of 1943. From then on, Cybis and Nacht-Samborski were seeing each other every Thursday. In 1944, he took part in an 'underground' exhibition of Kapists at Karol Tchorek's 'Nike' Salon (for more on this, see catalogue, p. 59), despite the fact that he hardly painted during the war. We know of only two of his works from this period. One of them, 'Still Life with Kettle' (ca. 1942, from the collection of Krzysztof Musiał), can be seen in the permanent exhibition of the POLIN Museum in the section devoted to the Holocaust. Portraits of Lena and Jack Cybis (MPOLIN-M766, MPOLIN-M767; MPOLIN-M768) come from a slightly later time.
He drew them while hiding in Milanówek after the Warsaw Uprising. After the fall of the Uprising, Nacht, together with her friend Helena Wolakowa (Helena Berli, Helena Berger), like almost the entire civilian population of Warsaw found himsel in the so-called transit camp in Pruszków. Cybis found them there and, in the autumn of 1944, they managed to make their way to Milanowek, where they found shelter in the villa of the sculptor Jan Szczepkowski. Cybis recalled that difficult time rife with dangers, just before the end of the war: "We were lying with Artek under the sarcophagus of Piłsudski (First Prize) under the floor of Szczepkowski's studio in Milanówek, hiding from the round-up. The boots of the Germans over our heads. Fortunately, they had no dogs" (J. Cybis, "Notatki malarskie. Dzienniki 1954-1966").
Nacht wrote of his wartime experiences to Zygmunt Menkes after the liberation: "Loss became something casual, it was 'normal' both for those who were dying and for those who remained. So long as we get to the finish line in as big a bunch as possible" (quoted in the MNP catalogue). Of his immediate family, only his father, his sister Charlotta (Stefania) Wachs with her children Hanna and Roman (her husband Edward was killed in Lviv), and his brother Marek survived. "The family never forgot Artek from the time of war, persecution, and Holocaust," Hanna and Roman wrote. "Not only did he help, but with his proud attitude he set an example of how one should behave in such times. Of course, we feel indebted to him."
In 1950, his father and Charlotta Wachs with her children moved to Israel. In the archives of the POLIN Museum there are two photographs of Artur Nacht-Samborski with his sister and her daughter Hanna (later Sachs) taken in Sopot, around 1948. Nacht-Samborski visited his family in Israel twice, the first time in 1957 and another time in 1965, before his father's death. Black and white photographs from this last stay have also been preserved in the POLIN archives. Younger brother Marek (b. 1902) remained in Poland and died in 1968 (see photograph of Artur with his brother Marek, circa 1960).
Post-war work
After the war, Nacht beggun to work fervently; "there is work to be done", he used to say. In 1946, he moved to the coast, where he he participated in the creation of the State Higher School of Visual Arts in Sopot (now the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk) together with Strzałecki, the Wnuks, and Krystyna and Juliusz Studnicki. He returned to Warsaw in 1949 and took up the chair of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, of which Jan Cybis was also a professor at the time. Removed from the position (like Cybis) in 1951, he returned to the university as early as 1952 (initially as a contract professor). He was eventually sacked in 1968. He has officially been retired, but we can can't help but feel the echoes of the anti-Semitic campaign of the March era.
Contrary to the persistent legend, the artist exhibited quite a lot after the war, his works were purchased for museum collections, although he actually had few individual exhibitions. This is probably why the posthumous 1977 monographic exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw in reverberated so loudly. For the first time, it was possible to see the artist's entire oeuvre, works not previously exhibited, unknown even to his closest friends. He was finally seen as a painter of beautiful still lifes, portraits, and strong landscapes. A painter for whom colour, its juxtapositions and contrasts, formed the basis for subtle, sophisticated compositions. "This surprising entirety of Nacht-Samborski's painting makes it so difficult to grasp" wrote Joanna Pollakówna. "So what if reflections of contemporary artistic trends sometimes shine through in this rich substance? They have been transformed, recast in a peculiar and unique alloy."
And let us add: separate. Being separate, singular was Nacht's choice in art (and in life).
This exhibition, as well as the Poznań exhibition, which followed nearly twenty years later, consolidated the canonical image of Nacht-Samborski's work. It was only in the subsequent years (thanks to a deposit by the artist's family at the MNP, which also includes works in the POLIN collection, donated in 2013 by the painter's family) that new faces of Nacht-Samborski, both private and professional were discovered, and as Pollakówna noted, the artist "did not have a single anointed seriousness about him. His sense of humour, which commanded a slightly ironic distance, never left him. And something of a social code that doesn't allow one to lean beyond a certain boundary, beyond which stretches too bare areas of tragedy. Although there are exceptions here too."
"To the monolithic yet monumental image that he himself shaped by selecting works for museum collections, we are adding further elements after his death" stated Małgorzata Kitowska-Łysiak (in: "Artur Nacht-Samborski 1898-1974>. Malarstwo postaci – postacie malarstwa”). These include extraordinary works in which we feel the 'Touch of Abstraction', which was the title of an exhibition at the aTAK gallery in 2007, as well as works with the motif of a grotesquely treated 'face-mask'. "These strange images, increasingly simplified," Pollakówna wrote, "faces – signs, archetypal conventional faces, as from children's drawings on the walls of tenement houses, faces – quick, faultless epithets of authentic and created individuals, are arranged in long, fascinating sequences...". We find references to these works in two account books with expressive sketches of faces, heads or birds, painted in pure, sharp colour (MPOLIN-M1453, MPOLIN-M1454). They were probably created in the late 1960s or early 1970s. This was in the 1970s, when Nacht's work increasingly reveals simple, predatory face-masks, broadly painted semi-abstract nudes.
The archive files (pre-1939) became a field of artistic experimentation for the painter, and the randomness of the substrate (Nacht often used a variety of papers - photographic, millimetre, ribbed and even newspaper), the delicate, semi-transparent tissue was tempting to him, not only as an unconventional material, but also allowing him to experiment with water-based paints, penetrating page after page of the nearly thousand-page volumes. What is striking about these seemingly abstract compositions is the enormous psychological tension expressed by the strong colour, the expressive contours of the colour patch drawn with a broad line, the painterly panache. Wipes and stains enhance their expressive power. These sketches are a struggle with memory and form, an exploration of the expression of colour, the power of the brush, perhaps an attempt at abstraction. They are situated on the margins of Nacht's work, but at the same time show the moment when these marginalia become the centre of his work.
Nacht-Samborski's art is appreciated by critics and art historians, as well as are admired by the public. It also continues to be rediscovered and reread. One of the themes explored is the artist's Jewish identity. It is not incorrect to assume that Artur Tanikowski is right when he writes: "It seems that Nacht did not record his Jewishness in pictures, just as he did not talk about it out loud. It pulsates from underneath, from beneath a layer of dense weaves of paint, not fully deciphered today" (in: 'Artur Nacht-Samborski. Martwe natury i pejzaże”).
Inviting you on a virtual journey through the works, documents and photographs of Artur Nacht-Samborski, we recall the words of his pupil and friend Jacek Siennicki: "What I can say about your painting is that it adheres completely to you. It contains your wisdom, simplicity and great sensitivity. It contains your gesture of legibility and insight. Your sensitivity and decisions. Everything that makes up a true human being – an artist. It is as deeply human as YOU" (in: "Artur Nacht-Samborski (1898-1974). Wystawa monograficzna”, National Muzeum in Warsaw).
References (selection):
"Artur Nacht-Samborski (1898-1974). Wystawa monograficzna”, National Muzeum in Warsaw, Warsaw 1977.
"Artur Nacht-Samborski. Z pracowni artysty. Obrazy, Rysunki, Szkice, Fotografie, Dokumenty", exhibition catalogue, October – November 1989, Art Museum in Łódź, ed. Janina Ładnowska, text by Joanna Pollakówna, Łódź 1989.
"Artur Nacht-Samborski 1898-1974", exhibition catalogue, National Museum in Poznań, catalogue prepared by Maria Gołąb, Poznań 1999.
"Artur Nacht-Samborski. W 25 rocznicę śmierci”, exhibition catalogue. Graphics and Poster Gallery. Nina Rozwadowska, Andrzej Stroka, Warsaw 1993.
Artur Tanikowski,'Zamącanie dramatu egzystencji. O późnych obrazach Artura Nachta-Samborskiego”, Culture.pl.
"Nacht-Samborski. Martwe natury i pejzaże”, Space Gallery, Kraków 2011.
Artur Nacht-Samborski | Nestors | Art Armoury (here biography, list of exhibitions, bibliography).
"Jak braliśmy Sowietów" ("How we took on the Soviets"). Interview with Stanisław Teisseyre conducted by Jarosław Maszewski, 'Zeszyty Artystyczne' 2010, no. 19.
Jacek Cybis, "Notatki malarskie. Dzienniki 1954-1966", Warszawa 1980.
Artur Nacht-Samborski, Letter to Wojciech Weiss of 9 March 1920, 'Kultura' (Warsaw) 1979, no. 16.
Maria Zientarova, 'Artur Nacht-Samborski' in: 'Ocaleni z Holokaustu. Artur Nacht-Samborski. Erna Rosenstein. Jonasz Stern', exhibition catalogue, Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, Kraków 2012, pp. 93-116.
Marta Chrzanowska-Foltzer, 'Discovering the landscapes of southern France – Kapists' journeys in the light of research, documents and photographs', 'Krzysztofory' 2009, no. 27, pp. 291-306. | Renata Piątkowska