Marian Bohusz-Szyszko was born in Trokienniki, Russian Poland (now Lithuania) on 2 February 1901 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius (1921–23) and the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (1924–27). Arriving in England with the Polish Second Corps (the so-called Anders' Army) in 1946, Bohusz-Szyszko helped establish the Polish School of Painting and Graphic Design in exile, became involved with the Polish YMCA Club and the Drian Galleries run by fellow pole, Halima Nałęcz; he is best known for his expressionist paintings, often with a religious subject, their ability to aid mental and spiritual health evidenced by many being held at St Christopher's Hospice, Sydenham, south London.
Artist, art critic and teacher, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko was born in Trokienniki, Russian Poland (now Lithuania) on 2 February 1901, into a wealthy, and prominent family of scientists, architects and artists. Between 1921 and 1923, Bohusz-Szyszko studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Stefan Batory University in Vilnius, and in 1924 he moved to study at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. After graduating in 1927, and a period as a teacher of drawing, painting and mathematics in the Polesia region and in Gdańsk, Bohusz-Szyszko volunteered in the Polish infantry during the September Campaign of 1939, following the German and Soviet invasions. Spending most of the war in German Prisoner of War camps, in which he delivered lectures on mathematics and drew hundreds of portraits, upon release he eventually made his way to Italy in 1945 where he joined General Władysław Anders’ Second Corps of the Polish Army. Due to his experience, Bohusz-Szyszko was appointed commander of the Art Section in the Corps's Department of Culture and Art, subsequently establishing a Painting School near Rome for artists of the Second Corps. The Second Corps left Italy, moving westwards in 1946, eventually reaching Scotland. Soon after arrival the Polish student artists, comprising both Bohusz-Szyszko’s school and Polish students from Accademia di Belle Arti, were moved to a Polish Resettlement Camp in Waldingfield near Sudbury, England. There, and subsequently at Kingwood Common and then Bayswater, London, Bohusz-Szyszko established the Polish School of Painting and Graphic Design in exile, with fellow refugees, Wojciech Jastrzębowski and Romuald Nowicki.
After the Polish army was disbanded in 1947, Bohusz-Szyszko remained influential over Polish artists in England, and he organised and ran the Study of Easel Painting and Applied Graphics, hosted by the Polish YMCA in London. This studio, moving between various affiliations, was headed by Bohusz-Szyszko until the mid-1980s, at which point it was affiliated with the Polish University Abroad. As an artist at this time, Bohusz-Szyszko developed a style that discarded simple forms in favour of colour and expression, applied to the canvas with thick impasto. As a teacher, he was characteristically liberating; ‘not encouraging the belief that his personal manner of painting could be imitated’ (Douglas Hall, Art in Exile, 2008).
In addition to his studio and teaching practice, Bohusz-Szyszko was involved in establishing Polish art collectives and associations in the UK. After a short-lived Young Artists Association, Bohusz-Szyszko established the more modern and progressive Grupa 49 (Group 49) in 1949, comprised of his previous students at Sudbury, Ryszard Demel, Leon Piesowocki, Kazimierz Dźwig and Aleksander Werner, among others. Lasting ten years, Grupa 49 exhibited in various locations, ranging from the Polish YMCA Club to the newly established Grabowski Gallery in South Kensington (established by Polish émigré, Mateusz Grabowski). In 1957, Bohusz-Szyszko also finalised the establishment of the Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain (APA), which had been initiated by Marek Żuławski and Feliks Topolski during the war. From 1959 Bohusz-Szyszko regularly organised museum tours for the Social Club of the Polish YMCA for some thirty years, visiting institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, Tate and the British Museum.
In 1963, the last visitor to Bohusz-Szyszko’s retrospective exhibition at Drian Galleries, London was Doctor Cicely Saunders (founder of the hosice movement in the UK), who, captivated by the artist’s painting Christ Calming the Waters, bought it to be placed in what was to become St Christopher’s Hospice at Sydenham in south London. After developing a relationship via letters (they would later marry in 1980), Saunders collected many more paintings by Bohusz-Szyszko to be exhibited in the hospice, which opened in 1967. Saunders identified four main types of pain experienced by her hospice patients: ‘physical, mental, social and spiritual, and in her estimation it was the last to which the paintings could make the greatest contribution’ (Douglas Hall, Art in Exile, 2008). in addition to being collected at St Christopher’s, in the 1960s–70s Bohusz-Szyszko’s paintings were exhibited numerous times at Drian Galleries, run by painter, immigrant art advocate and APA member Halima Nałęcz. The predominant themes of his paintings in this period were religious, drawing on Old and New Testament iconography, often with the recurring motif of the crucifixion. Bohusz-Szyszko was awarded the Garby Prize and made Honorary chairman for life by the APA in 1972; in the following year he showed 50 paintings and drawings at his Golden Jubilee exhibition at Drian Galleries. Bohusz-Szyszko also wrote for Tygodnik Polski, and developed his theoretical and critical writings in the book O Sztuce [On Art], published in Polish in London in 1982. Marian Bohusz-Szyszko died at St Christopher’s Hospice, Sydenham, London, England on 23 January 1995, where over 80 of his works are now housed. Many posthumous group shows have featured his work, including those held by POSK Gallery, Ben Uri, Graves Gallery, Sheffield and Boundary Gallery, London. His work is held in UK public collections including POSK in London and the Church Mission Society in Birmingham, among others.