Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Marek Zulawski artist

Marek Zulawski was born to Polish-Jewish parents in Rome, Italy in 1908 but grew up in Zakopane, Poland, studying at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (1926–33) and in Paris (1935–36). Settling in London, England permanently after the invasion of Poland in 1939, Zulawski exhibited regularly in the UK and abroad. He is known for his printmaking, painting and large-scale murals, his style evolving from an engagement with post-impressionism, through a muted heroic figuration, to his later, strong, vividly coloured semi-abstract compositions, often on religious themes.

Born: 1908 Rome, Italy

Died: 1985 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1936

Other name/s: Marek Żuławski


Biography

Painter Marek Zulawski was born on 13 April 1908 in Rome to Jerzy Zulawski, philosopher and historian, and Kazimiera Zulawski (nee Hanicki), a translator of French literature. He grew up in Zakopane, Poland, before moving to Warsaw to study at the Academy of Fine Arts from 1926–33. In 1935 he won a scholarship to study art in Paris, where he was mostly influenced by colourism and the works of Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard. The following year Zulawski found himself in London ‘by chance’: ‘I thought I would stay for a few days and see the National Gallery and the Tate before going back to Warsaw, where I was supposed to take up a teaching post at an Art School. I stayed ever since’ (Scharf, 1983). In 1937 he held his first solo exhibition at the prestigious Leger Gallery; showed his painting The London View at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, and married his first wife, painter and illustrator Eugenia Różańska (whom he divorced a year later). Travelling in Europe in 1939, he met self-taught Jewish artist Halina Korn (his future second wife). Returning to London abruptly due to the outbreak of war, Zulawski was granted British citizenship and married Korn. The couple became friends with other Polish artists in London, including Feliks Topolski, Marian Szyszko-Bohusz, Tadeusz Piotr Potworowski, Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, and gallerist and painter, Halima Nałecz. Zulawski broadcast with the Polish section of the BBC and created his iconic propaganda poster on behalf of his invaded homeland, Poland First to Fight (1939). This image of a tattered Polish flag was later adapted into a collectors' postage stamp.

Having secured Korn a position at London’s Polish embassy in 1940, both artists began exhibiting: Korn with the Women’s International Art Club, and Zulawski with Agnew's Gallery for a solo show (1942), the Allied Nations exhibition at Suffolk Street Galleries (1942), and the London Group Salon in Bradford (1944). In 1946 Zulawski visited Warsaw to create a series of drawings documenting the destruction and atmosphere of the postwar capital. Originally influenced by Post-Impressionism, Zulawski began to focus on simplified designs with a muted palette. This development partly arose through a visit to mining communities in South Wales in 1948 (when he possibly visited fellow Polish refugee painter, Josef Herman, whose influence can be detected, particularly in the depiction of the nobility of labour), when he became interested in confronting reality, resulting in paintings such as In the Mining Canteen and Rest in a Mine. Zulawski is well-known for these characteristically simplified figures and forms, encapsulating his belief that ‘If art is anything at all’, it is ‘probably an attempt at organising chaos, in rebellion against reality’ (Zulawski, 2009). Beyond canvas painting, Zulawski also gained recognition as a muralist, producing a monumental painting for the Homes and Gardens pavilion at the Festival of Britain, Southbank Centre in 1951, which was purchased by London Transport for its headquarters in Loughton. Zulawski was subsequently elected a member of the Society of Mural Painters in 1952.

The 1950s saw religion amplified in Zulawski’s work. He produced his large painting of Christ Among the Poor in 1953, and showed Ecco Homo at The Religious Theme exhibition at Tate Gallery in 1958. Joining the Senefelder Group in 1955 (an association for lithographers), he published his book of colour lithographs Dawn, Noon and Night (1958). In 1960, Zulawski showed Christ Among the Poor at the Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition Mural Art Today and Woman at the Grave of the Fallen at the British Peace Committee’s World Without War show in London. Throughout the following decade, he exhibited in London, Bristol and internationally, and in the 1970s worked on a series of illustrations to the epic of Gilgamesh, inspired by his trips to Warsaw in 1946.

Following Korn’s death in 1978, Zulawski married his third wife, Maria Lewandowska, in 1980, and began publishing his autobiography in Polish (later compiled and published in English in 2009). The couple lived in the former studio of sculptor, Gilbert Bayes in Greville Place, St John's Wood. In 1982, Zulawski painted the Baptism of Jesus mural for Our Lady Church in St John’s Wood, and with fellow Polish émigré artist, Stanisław Frenkel wrote a preface to the Association of Polish Artist’s publication Contemporary Polish Artists in Great Britain (1983). In the same year his son, Adam, was born, and he held a retrospective at the October Gallery. Marek Zulawski died on 30 March 1985 in London, England and was buried alongside Korn at Kensal Green Cemetery. His works can be found in UK public collections including Ben Uri Collection and Leicestershire County Council. His late semi-abstract print from the Ben Uri Collection was included in Ben Uri's survey exhibition: Art Out of the Bloodlands: A Century of Polish Art in Britain in 2017.

Related books

  • Rachel Dickson ed., From Adler to Żuławski: A Century of Polish Artists in Britain (London: Ben Uri Research Unit, 2020)
  • Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz ed., Polish art in exile in Matthew Bateson's London collection (materiały Studia , 2020
  • Agata Soczyńska, 'Marek Żuławski and Stanisław Frenkiel about Modern British Art', in Małgorzata Geroni, Jerzy Malinowski and Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz eds., Art of the United Kingdom, of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland in 20th-21st Centuries and Polish-British and Irish Art Relations (Toruń: Nicolaus Copernicus University Press, 2015), pp. 245-262
  • Pole Position – Polish Art in Britain 1939–1989 (from the collection of Matthew Bateson) , exh. cat., Museums Sheffield (2014)
  • Marek Żuławski, Study for a Self-Portrait (Toruń and London: Kucharski Publishing House, 2009)
  • Douglas Hall, Art in Exile: Polish Painters in Post-War Britain (Michigan: Sansom, 2008), p. 357
  • David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945, Vol. 2, M to Z (Bristol: Art Dictionaries Ltd, 2006)
  • Walter Schwab and Julia Weiner eds., Jewish Artists: The Ben Uri Collection (London: Ben Uri Society in Association with Lund Humphries, 1994), p. 76
  • Roland Turner, The Annual Obituary 1985 (New York: St Martin's, 1988), pp. 158-160
  • Rafael Scharf, 'Marek Zulawski: In Conversation with Rafael Scharf', Jewish Quarterly, Vol. 30, No. 4, 1983, pp. 37-39
  • Janina Baranowska ed., Contemporary Polish Artists in Great Britain (London: Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain, 1983), p. 100
  • Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, 'Marek Żuławski', Tydzień Polski, No. 17, 1981, pp. 242-244
  • Alicja Drwęska, 'Painting by Marek Żuławski', Tydzien Polski, No. 45, 1975, pp. 239-240
  • Jasia Reichardt, Marek Zulawski (London: Drian Galleries, 1962)
  • Marek Zulawski, Dawn, Noon and Night (Bristol: Jan Arnolfini Press, 1958)
  • Martyn Goff, 'Marek Zulawski and Halina Korn', Studio, Vol. 152, 1956, pp. 108-111
  • Czeslaw Poznański, Tadeusz Potworowski and Marek Żuławski eds., Polish Artists in Great Britain: With an Essay on Polish art (London: The Polish Literary Monthly 'Nowa Polska', 1944)
  • Irena Piotrowska, 'Warsaw's Fight for Freedom and Independence (1794-1944) in Polish Painting', Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1944, pp. 40-47
  • Marek Zulawski, Polish Navy (London: Sun Engraving, 1944)
  • Marek Zulawski, Poland (Harrow: Atlantis, 1944)
  • Jan Wiktor Sienkiewicz ed., Polish art in exile in Matthew Bateson's London collection (Warsaw: The National Institute of Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad Polonika, 2020)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • Academy of Fine Arts Warsaw (student)
  • Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain, APA (member)
  • Senefelder Club (member)
  • Society of Mural Painters (member)
  • The London Group (member)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Halima Nałęcz and Her Artists, POSK Gallery, London (2021)
  • A Century of Polish Artists in Great Britain, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, London (2017)
  • Marek Zulawski - Paintings of Israel and Screen-Prints - and Chaim Stephenson - Sculpture, Ben Uri Art Gallery, London (1982)
  • Marek, Bedford House Gallery, London (1975)
  • Marek Zulawski, Drian Galleries, London (1970)
  • Polish Artists in Great Britain, Drian Galleries, London (1968)
  • Marek Zulawski, Drian Galleries, London (1962)
  • Marek Zulawski, New Paintings 1959-60, Zwemmer Gallery, London (1960)
  • World Without War, Exhibition with the British Peace Committee, London (1960)
  • Mural Art Today, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1960)
  • Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1960)
  • Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1959)
  • The Religious Theme, Tate Gallery, London (1958)
  • Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1957)
  • Marek Zulawski: Oil Paintings, Gouaches and Drawings and Lithographs, Zwemmer Gallery, London (1956)
  • The Homes and Gardens Pavilion, Festival of Britain, South Bank Centre, London (1951)
  • Pictures for Schools, Tate Gallery, London (1948)
  • Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1944)
  • The London Group Salon, Bradford (1944)
  • Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1943)
  • Marek Zulawski, Agnew Gallery, London (1942)
  • Allied Nations Exhibition, Suffolk Gallery, London (1942)
  • Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (1937)
  • Solo Exhibition, Leger Gallery (1937)
  Marek Zulawski
   
Ben Uri collection

Marek Zulawski in the Ben Uri collection

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Marek Zulawski]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Marek Zulawski] in the Ben Uri Library