"Small planks" are objects that Krystiana Robb-Narbutt started to create in the mid-1970s with specific individuals in mind as an expression of closeness and friendship. These are small-sized paintings with a colourful composition and dedications – most often constituting an element of the composition – placed on the frame. Five such paintings, which are in the collection of the POLIN Museum, were given by the artist to Teodor Bok, a prominent Polish artist of Jewish origin, a March emigrant with whom the artist had been friends since the 1960s. The POLIN Museum has gathered a representative collection of works by Teodor Bok, and the works of Krystiana Robb-Narbutt are an important addition to this collection. This seemingly inconspicuous set is a rare example of artists of Jewish origin building and maintaining relationships marked by difficult experiences in the realities of Poland at the time.
Krystiana Robb-Narbutt's art was a kind of diary – it is mainly autobiographical and historiographical. The tragic wartime and post-war experiences of her relatives – Polish Jews – were of great importance for the artist's work. Her entire family ended up in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War, from which only Krystiana's mother Franciszka survived. The artist's brother, born after the war, emigrated from Poland after March 1968. The artist herself was very involved politically and socially – as a result of her participation in the student protests in March 1968, she was imprisoned for several months, which was also reflected in her work. Krystiana Robb-Narbutt was a representative of the so-called second generation, i.e. artists who addressed the Holocaust on the basis of the experiences of their immediate family, most often their parents. This generation grew up with a sense of void left by loved ones. This made it all the more important to build and maintain friendly relationships with other members of the decimated Jewish community.
Characteristic of Krystiana Robb-Narbutt's work was the asceticism of her compositions – highly simplified landscapes, single elements extracted from them – a stone, a road, a field – as well as her characteristic small object-cases, in which she used single found objects.
Krystiana Robb-Narbutt (born 1945 in Warsaw, died 2006 ibidem) – painter, draughtswoman, creator of painting and sculpture objects and textiles, writer and poet. From 1965 to 1971, she studied Painting, Graphic Arts and Artistic Fabric at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Together with Jerzy Kalina, Maciej Łubowski and Ireneusz Szubert, she founded the young painters' group "Sejf" (A Safe). She was also associated with the "For Improvement" (Polish: O poprawę) movement. In 2005, together with Krystyna Piotrowska, she initiated 'in situ' installations in abandoned tenement houses on Próżna Street as part of the 'Singer's Warsaw' Festival of Jewish Culture, for which they received an award from the 'Pokaz' Art Criticism Club (Polish: Klub Krytyki Artystycznej Pokaz).
In 2008, the artist was posthumously awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta for her outstanding contribution to democratic change and her professional achievements.
The artist's works were shown at the retrospective exhibition "Krystiana Robb-Narbutt. Nostalgia is Elsewhere" at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in 2003, and her figure has inspired both art critics (the book "Krystiana Robb-Narbutt. Drawings, Objects, Studio, ed. Dorota Jarecka, Wanda Siedlecka, Warsaw 2012), as well as artists (Nicolas Grospierre's photographic project "Studio", 2010, or the performance "The Shadow Touches Me", directed by Piotr Lachmann, "Poza" Video Theatre, 2004).
Małgorzata Bogdańska-Krzyżanek