Wojciech Weiss (1875–1950), painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, born in Leorda, Bukovina (today Romania), lived in Kraków from 1890 onwards. He studied at the local School of Fine Arts and later also in Paris and Italy. Weiss was a versatile artist, he dealt with painting, printmaking, and even sculpture; he also left behind an enormous number of sketches and drawings. His oeuvre is one of the most outstanding achievements of the Young Poland movement; it retained its progressive character and influence well into the interwar period (more about the artist: https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/wojciech-weiss, in Polish only, accessed 19 September 2021).
The POLIN Museum collection includes works which, citing Jacek Friedrich, can be collectively dubbed “Wojciech Weiss’s Jewish themes” (J. Friedrich, “Żydowskie tematy Wojciecha Weissa”, in: Żydowskie tematy Wojciecha Weissa, exhibition catalogue, Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, Kraków 1999, p. 7). These are drawings and pastels depicting the motif of the Jewish cemetery in Strzyżów. It was in that picturesque town, surrounded by beautiful nature, that the artist also painted other amazing oils, full of expression and vitality: Spring (1898; National Museum in Warsaw), Radiant Sunset (1900; in the collection of the National Museum in Poznań), Poppies (1902; deposit at the National Museum in Krakow).
The collection of Weiss’s works is supplemented by works tackling the theme of the pogroms of Jews during the Great War: the oil sketch Expulsion (MPOLIN-M) and the painting Pogrom (ca. 1918; MPOLIN-M M171) which does not leave any viewer indifferent.
At the end of a happy life and a career full of success and honours (Weiss was the rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in 1918–1919, 1933–1934, 1935–1936), the painter wrote: “[…] artists are the lovers of immortal gods, they never get old; I have never loved life so passionately before – only now do I feel that I am drinking immortality” (from the artist’s notes).
All the works come from the collection of Wojciech Weiss’s family.
Renata Piątkowska