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• 1 2015-09-25T15:53:16-07:00 Interwar-Period Kazimierz as Collaborative Haven 3 plain 2015-09-30T21:56:52-07:00

  The Kazimierz colony was full of life. New painters continued to arrive. Pruszkowski’s students, following in the footsteps of the founders of “St. Luke’s Brotherhood” (an artistic association formed in Kazimierz in 1925, referencing earlier St. Luke guilds), created new artistic societies in the town. In 1929, the “Warsaw School” was formed. Its members were Eugeniusz Arct, Włodzimierz Bartoszewicz (chairman), Michał Bylina, Leokadia Bielska, Henryk Jaworski, Antoni Łyżwański, Władysław Palessa, Jadwiga Przeradzka, Aleksander Rak, Efraim and Menasze Seidenbeutel, and Wacław Ujejski. Among the group members, Teresa Roszkowska especially stood out. She was well-known for her originality in dress and her grotesque manner and sense of humor in painting. Other outstanding artists were the Seidenbeutel twins, who painted their pieces together; they are an unusual case study in the psychology of the creative process. The “Warsaw School” was less focused on old-style paintings and more interested in landscapes.

  Along with the “St. Luke’s Brotherhood,” the “Warsaw School” displayed its members’ pieces in the prestigious exhibition in the Rath Museum in Geneva (1931). These groups represented Polish art there. The exhibition was much appreciated and praised by both Swiss critics and viewers. In 1934 in Kazimierz, the group “Freepainting Lodge” (a play on the word freemasonic—wolnomularska/wolnomalarska) was established, and its members included Bolesław Gniazdowski, Hanna Henneberg, Bolesław Herman, Leonia Nadelmanówna, Jadwiga Pietkiewicz, Mieczysław Szymański, Kazimierz Zielenkiewicz, Feliks Topolski, Aleksander Żyw, Edmund Kaniewski, Jerzy Knothe, Antoni Kudła and Bolesław Linke.

  Gizela Hufnagel, Elżbieta Hirszberżanka, and Mery Litauer, who in 1920 established the group “Color,” also were connected to the atelier of Tadeusz Pruszkowski. Although their artistic program was in the very name of the group, “Color,” they had much in common with the followers of Pruszkowski. They painted together in Kazimierz. These three female painters were of Jewish descent, which was nothing unusual in the atelier of “Prusz.” Many Jewish artists studied there—Jan Gotard, the Seidenbeutel brothers, and Feliks Topolski are but some examples. The most important thing was that they all wanted to be in Kazimierz.

  In the 1930s, the town welcomed more and more Jewish artists, and although painters were not the only artists, they were the most prevalent. Among them were painters of the older generation, like Feliks Frydman, Adolf Behrman, and Maurycy Trębacz, who was a frequent visitor at that time. Another figure who stayed in Kazimierz for months at a time was Natan Korzeń. These artists, however, are not the end of the list. From the younger generation one could mention Mira Zylowa (Silberschlag), Stella Amelia Miller, Izrael Tykociński, Henryk Cytryn, Dionizy Greifenberg, Boas Dulman, Mojżesz Rynecki, Bernard Rolnicki, Henryk Rabinowicz, and Hersz Cyna, and many others. The artists mentioned above were representatives of the Warsaw circles, but at the time, Kazimierz became a link between different Jewish spheres that were looking for contact with each other and trying to unite. Henryk Lewensztadt and Symcha Trachter, two distinguished painters, both of whom studied and lived in Paris in the ´20s, were associated with circles in the city of Lublin.The Łódź circles were very well represented in Kazimierz. Samuel Finkelstein and Natan Szpigiel, both well-known painters from the group “Start,” visited Kazimierz quite often. It is possible that another member of that group—Karol Hiller, a Pole—came with them to Kazimierz. Hiller was one of the most outstanding representatives of the Polish avant-garde. In Kazimierz, he created traditional representations of landscapes. Other figures from Łódź were Roman Rozental, Marceli Słodki and Józef Kowner. The circles of Krakow were represented by Samuel Cygler and Izydor Goldhuber. From Lwów came Marcin Kitz and Maksymilian Feuerring.

  These are just a few names, and it is impossible to mention all of them. About many, history remains silent. The times were hard; anti-Semitism was escalating. Kazimierz, however, was different. Here, during shared open-air workshops, the Jews found a refuge and freedom. It is not surprising that the town became not only a place for open-air workshops but also for locations for films. Here, in the ´30s, some of the most emblematic movies in Yiddish were shot. Among these films were Der dibuk, directed by Michal Waszyński, and Yidl mitn fidl.

  Jakub Glatstein, a Jewish writer, spent quite a lot of time in Kazimierz in 1933. In his émigré’s perspective—he lived in the United States—Kazimierz became an incarnation of Jewish tradition and history. Glatstein’s expressed this view in his description of the town in one of his novels. Kazimierz became a colony that gathered Jewish artists—not in a community separate from Polish painters and writers but in a fellowship with them. Such communal coexistence was a phenomenon without precedent in Europe. Artistic colonies, due to their ties to nationalistic movements, usually were not particularly appealing to Jewish artists. One exception to this rule was the Dutch Laren colony. During the nineteenth century, many painters of Jewish descent worked there, gathering around Josef Israëls, at the time a well-known artistic authority in his circles. The case of Kazimierz was different, however. The town turned out to be a place of integration and cooperative activity for nearly all artistic circles of Polish Jews.

  From Waldemar Odorowski, Artistic Colony in Kazimierz Dolny. Centuries 19^th–21^st, trans. Joanna Roszak, revised by Halina Goldberg and Virginia Whealton (Kazimierz Dolny: Nadwiślańskie Museum in Kazimierz Dolny, 2005), 60–62.