Born: 1907 Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland)
Died: 1989 London, England
Year of Migration to the UK: 1935
Other name/s: Felix Topolski, Felicjan Typlel-Topolski, Felicjan Topolski, Felicjan Tylpel
Biography
Painter, draughtsman, set designer and illustrator, Feliks Topolski was born Felicjan Typlel-Topolski in Warsaw, Congress Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire (now Poland) on 14 August 1907, to radical Jewish parents; largely secular, they later converted to Lutheranism, despite orthodox antecedents. Both were involved in protests against the Russian Empire, where they met, according to Feliks' autobiography. He studied painting at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (1927–32), and after briefly serving as an artillery officer in the Polish army, contributed cartoons to a satirical journal. In the early 1930s he received scholarships to study art in Italy and France, and travelled to England in 1935 when he was commissioned by Wiadomości Literackie [Literary News] to provide illustrations for King George V’s Silver Jubilee. Fascinated by what he perceived as London’s ‘exotic’ character, Topolski remained in England for the rest of his life, acquiring British citizenship in 1947. He became friends with writer, Graham Greene, contributing illustrations to the magazine Night and Day (co-edited by Greene) and to the News Chronicle. In 1939 two of George Bernard Shaw’s plays were published with illustrations by Tolpolski, catapulting him to national fame, Shaw describing him as ‘perhaps the greatest of all impressionists in black and white’ (Jewish Chronicle Obituary). In 1941 Topolski held a solo exhibition at the prestigious Knoedler and Colnaghi Gallery of which The Times lauded: ‘the freedom, firmness, and dash of his pen drawing, his feeling for mass and movement, and the skill with which he relieves effects which are primarily monochrome with touches of colour’ (The Times 1941, p. 6). During the Second World War, Topolski was an official war artist for both the British and exiled Polish governments. He recorded the aftermath of the Battle of Britain and battlefields in Eastern Europe and Russia, while from 1944 he was posted variously to Egypt, the Levant, East Africa, China, and Italy. He also recorded the liberation of Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945 (several of these drawings were shown at Ben Uri's exhibition Subjects of Jewish Interest in 1946-47), and the Nuremberg Trials.
Topolski’s first wartime publication was Britain in Peace and War (1941), followed by Russia in War and Three Continents 1944-45 (1946). The war period confirmed Topolski's British reputation as an exceptionally talented draughtsman. His drawings were characterised by a swift, expressionist style, which he could convert into large-scale, vivid paintings without any loss of freedom and immediacy. In 1948 he designed the set, characterised by ‘bold and vigorous-colourings’ of Gogol’s The Government Inspector at London's Old Vic Theatre (C.L. 1948, p. 22). In 1951 he produced The Cavalcade of the Commonwealth for the Festival of Britain, based on drawings made on a tour to India, Indochina, Singapore, Japan and the USA. The same year he designed sets and costumes for a new production of Shaw’s comedy Man and Superman, at the Arena Theatre, Birmingham. Topolski also made many portraits of his contemporaries, including T.S. Elliot, Shaw, H.G. Wells, Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Harold Macmillan. In 1955 his work was featured in the Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, Stage Designs by members of the entertainment world in aid of the Artists Pool of Industry. In 1959 Prince Philip commissioned a mural series depicting HRH Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation at Westminster Abbey. In 1961 Topolski was among the patrons organising an exhibition at St Mary's Hall, Coventry documenting Nazi concentration camps. Topolski was elected a Royal Academician in 1989. His held solo shows with the Grosvenor, Leger, and Leicester Galleries, among others.
Throughout his life Topolski travelled extensively, and frequently met leading global figures, including Mahatma Gandhi, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King. His travels and daily events were recorded in Topolski’s Chronicles (begun in 1953), a collection of drawings produced on cheap brown paper, emulating the broadsheets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By the time the final issue was published, the entire series contained over 3,000 images, documenting 30 years of world history. From 1975 until his death Topolski worked on a 600 foot mural in his railway arch studio at Waterloo, on London’s South Bank, depicting key events and people of the twentieth century. He donated this to the nation, resulting in the Topolski Century Gallery, situated in the same studio. Following a chequered history and periods of closure, the studio is open once again, hosting exhibitions and functioning as an educational charity promoting Topolski’s works.
Feliks Topolski died in London, England on 24 August 1989. His work is represented in UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, British Museum, Imperial War Museum, National Portrait Gallery and the V&A, among others. Posthumously, Ben Uri featured his work in Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Art in Britain (2017), and in Art-Exit: A Very Different Europe, held at the European Commission (2019). His grandson Lucien Topolski is working on a Topolski Memoir project.
Related books
- Rachel Dickson, ed., From Adler to Zulawski: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain (London: BURU, 2020)
- Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz, Polish Art in Exile in Matthew Bateson's London Collection (Warsaw: Studia y Materialy, 2020)
- Laura Brandon, Jonathan Mogul, and Nicolae Harsanyi, An Artist on the Eastern Front: Feliks Topolski, 1941 (Wolfsonian-Florida International University, 2015)
- Pole Position, exh. cat. Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield (2014)
- Douglas Hall, Art in Exile: Polish Painters in Post-war Britain (Bristol: Sansom & Company, 2008)
- Joseph Darracott, 'Topolski, (Felician) Feliks', in H C G Matthew and Brian Harrison eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2004)
- 'Feliks Topolski Obituary', Jewish Chronicle, 8 September 1989, p. 18
- Feliks Topolski: an Important Collection of Drawings 1930-1960 (London: Bookshop Gallery, 1978)
- Barry Fealdman, ‘Art. Exiles’, Jewish Chronicle, 29 September 1978, p. 13
- Feliks Topolski’s Buckingham Palace Panoramas (Virginia: Quartet Books, 1977)
- Peter Stone, ‘Graphics for the people’, Jewish Chronicle, 23 February 1973, p. 22
- ‘Contemporary Chronicler’, Country Life, 29 February 1968, p. 485
- W. F., ‘Legal Scenes’, Jewish Chronicle, 12 January 1962, p. 12
- F.G.S., ‘Stage Artists’, Jewish Chronicle, 22 April 1955, p. 17
- F.G.S., ‘Beaux Art Gallery’, Jewish Chronicle, 18 July 1952, p. 10
- C. L., ‘The Government Inspector’, Jewish Chronicle, 13 February 1948, p. 22
- ‘Art Notes. Artists of Fame and of Promise’, Jewish Chronicle, 22 August 1941, p. 17
- ‘Art Notes. Contemporary Continental Art’, Jewish Chronicle, 25 July 1941, p. 25
- Feliks Topolski, Britain in Peace and War (London: Methuen, 1946)
- Feliks Topolski, Three Continents 1944-45 (London: Methuen, 1946)
- Feliks Topolski, 'Contemporary Comment and Caricature', The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 83, No. 484 (July 1943), pp. 164-168
- Feliks Topolski, Russia in War (London: Methuen, 1942)
- 'M. Topolski's Drawings', The Times, 30 April 1941, p. 6
Public collections
Related organisations
- Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw (student), Royal Academy of Arts (academician) (student, academician)
Related web links
- Ben Uri exhibition Art-Exit: A Very Different Europe'
- Chris Beetles ed., 'Feliks Topolski', in A Century of British Art, Vol. 1
- Encyclopaedia Judaica entry
- Feliks Topolski by Lucien Topolski, 2022
- Feliks Topolski, The artist friend of Prince Philip that time forgot
- Poland Culture website entry
- Tate Gallery Entry
- Topolski biography, Chris Beetle Gallery
- Topolski's 'Memoir of the Century'
- UWE Projects
- Topolski Memoir / Topolski Century
Selected exhibitions
- Halima Nałęcz & Her Artists POSK, London (2021)
- Outlook: No Return, POSK, London (2020)
- Feliks Topolski: Drawing Debden, The Bank of England (2019)
- Art-Exit 1939: A Very Different Europe, curated by Ben Uri for Europe House, London SW1 (2019)
- Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum (2017)
- Pole Position, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield (2014)
- The London Spectacle 1935: an Exhibition of Drawings from the 1930s by Feliks Topolski R.A., Abbott and Holder Gallery (2013)
- Paris Lost: an Exhibition of Drawings from the 1930s, Abbott and Holder Gallery (2008)
- Jewish Stage and Film Designers, Ben Uri Gallery (1999)
- Topolski: Recent Drawings and Sculpture, Freedman Gallery, Reading (1993)
- Feliks Topolski, Bookshop Gallery (1978)
- Exhibition of Graphics, Gallery on 11 Albemarle Street run by Christie's Contemporary Art (1973)
- Topolski the Chronicler, Grosvenor Gallery (1968)
- The Human Image: the Third Exhibition of the Contemporary Portrait Society (1964)
- Exhibition of Recent Acquisitions (6th Collection) Friends of the Art Museums of Israel, Ben Uri Gallery (1958)
- Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, Stage Designs, Ohana Gallery (1955)
- Summer Exhibition of Modern Paintings and Drawings, Beaux Arts Gallery (1952)
- Subjects of Jewish Interest, Ben Uri Gallery (1946-47)
- Drawings and Paintings by Feliks Topolski, Leicester Galleries (1946)
- Subjects of Jewish Interest: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Ben Uri Gallery (1946)
- Royal Academy of Arts (1943)
- Artists of Fame and of Promise, Leicester Galleries (1941)
- Contemporary Continental Art, Leger Gallery (1941)
- Topolski Drawings, Knoedler and Colnaghi (1941)
- Christmas Exhibition, Wertheim Gallery (1935)
Ben Uri collection
Feliks Topolski in the Ben Uri collection
Ben Uri archive
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Feliks Topolski]
Ben Uri library
Publications related to [Feliks Topolski] in the Ben Uri Library