Józef Sękalski was born in Turek, Russian Empire (now Poland) in 1904. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Art at Wilno University in Lithuania from 1929–34. In 1942 he arrived in Scotland where he rejoined the Polish army in exile. He subsequently became a central figure in the St Andrews Group of Wood Engravers, producing book designs and teaching printmaking at various Scottish art schools.
Painter and printmaker Józef Sękalski was born to farmer Ludwik Sękalski in Turek, Russian Empire (now Poland) in 1904. He initially studied medicine prior to studying for three years with the Faculty of Fine Art at Wilno University, Lithuaniafrom 1929–34 where he took classes in painting under Ludomir Sleńdziński, lettering under Bonawentura Lenart, and engraving under Jerzy Hoppen, to whom he became assistant in his final year. Between 1934 and 1937 Sękalski painted church murals under Professor Mehoffer in Turek, continuing this until 1937, after which he became the head of Artists-Designers Studio in Łódź in Poland. During this time he visited Vienna and Italy. After the beginning of the Second World War, Sękalski escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland in 1940 and travelled to Budapest, successfully exhibiting prints based on his experiences of the burning of Warsaw. He continued on to France and enlisted in the Polish Army under French command. Captured in the Ardennes and marched to Saxony, he escaped through Marseilles and eventually reached Scotland in 1942, joining the remnants of the Polish army in Dundee.
In Scotland Sękalski worked as an illustrator and designer for the Polish Library and Publishing Company in Glasgow from 1944–45. Subsequently moving to a flat at 29 North Street, St Andrews, towards the end of the war, he constructed his own makeshift printing press on the floor of his home, from the back axle of a car, a tuck box, and assorted other materials. There he met and married English artist Roberta Hodges, and together they moved to Bell Rock House on St Andrews harbour where they established studios and hosted other artists, such as fellow Pole-in-exile Stanislaw Przespolewski, who painted a number of portraits, nudes, still lifes and landscapes in Roberta’s attic studio. Along with Alison and Winifred McKenzie and Annabel Kidston, Sękalski became part of the St Andrews Group of Wood Engravers, formed under the auspices of the Scottish Arts Council to promote Scottish and International art through exhibitions and lectures. Around this time, he began teaching at the Glasgow School of Art, as well as becoming a respected book designer and etcher. He illustrated Albert Mackie’s A Call from Warsaw: An Anthology of Underground Warsaw Poetry, published in Glasgow in 1944. The book had been first printed secretly in Warsaw when under German occupation in 1940. He then produced wood-engravings for F. C. Anstruther’s Old Polish Legends, published by the Polish Library, Glasgow in 1945. Between 1944 and 1951, Sękalski participated several times in the Annual Exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.
Sękalski was elected as member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1949 and the Society of Scottish Artists in 1950. He provided woodcuts for St. Andrews: Its Character and Tradition, published by The St. Andrews Preservation Trust in 1951. He taught graphic design at the Dundee Institute of Art and Technology, and from 1957 lectured on printmaking at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD), Dundee, a position he held until he retired in 1970. Józef Sękalski died in 1972. The DJCAD holds an award in his name, the Sekalski Prize, which is presented to students of illustration who show excellence in printmaking. His prints can be found in UK public collections such as the V&A, St Andrews Preservation Trust, St Andrews Heritage Museum and Garden, and National Galleries Scotland.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Józef Sękalski]
Publications related to [Józef Sękalski] in the Ben Uri Library