"If fate won’t smile at me, I will smile at fate" – this sentence from the letter to Wojciech Przybyszewski (August of 1981) could as well be the life motto of Teodor Bok (1947 - 2007). Despite the fact that numerous movies have been made and articles written about his work and life, Bok’s oeuvre has still not been given enough attention in Poland. POLIN gathered a representative collection of his works, consisting mostly of purchases and donations from the artist’s daughter, Agnieszka Bok. Other works were donated by his friends: Ewa Kuryluk (painting Martwa natura [Still life], drawing Alchemik [Alchemist], photographs and letters from Teodor to her) and Wojciech Przybyszewski, with whom Bok shared an interest in speleology (photographs, master prints, letters).
Teodor Bok was a Polish-Jewish artist; after the events of March ’68, he initiated an endeavour to leave Poland. His parents had already left the country. "March of 1968 happened while he was in the army" – recalls Andrzej Bieńkowski – “some unit of the Warsaw Pact in the middle of nowhere near Wałcz. The anti-Semitic slur does not reach that far. But the atmosphere in the country was horrible. He tries once again with the Academy and fails. I have been working in that institution for almost 30 years and I still can’t get it, how this was even possible to overlook his talent. " (https://ww.asp.waw.pl/2015/11/20/teodor-bok-wystawa-prac/, access 26.10.2020). Teodor Bok gained his permission to leave the country no sooner than in 1973. As the family legend has it, the then Prime Minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, personally intervened on his behalf. We present Teodor Bok and his story in our Postwar Gallery of the Core Exhibition.
Instead of Sweden (where his parents had been living) Bok settled in Copenhagen. There he graduated from Kunsthåndværkerskolen, nowadays the Det Kongelige Akademi – Arkitektur, Design, Konservering [Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts – Architecture, Design, Conservation], where he got his diploma in graphic arts. In Denmark he found his artistic world and developed himself as a total artist, employing various forms, techniques and inspirations. He participated in many collective and individual exhibitions, among others in Hamburg, Brno and Copenhagen. After 1989, he would present his works in Poland more and more often: exhibitions Jesteśmy [We are] in Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw (1991), and Polacy wśród Duńczyków. Obecność [Poles among Danes. Presence] in the Imperial Castle in Poznań (2003). His works were also exhibited in the Studio Gallery in Warsaw together with Andrzej Bieńkowski (2000), at Centralne Muzeum Włókiennictwa [the Central Museum of Textiles] in Łodz or the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2015).
Renata Piątkowska