Wieslaw Pilawski was born in Mścisław, Congress Kingdom of Poland (now Belarus) on 24 August 1916. He was educated in Vilnius and by 1940 he had joined the ranks of the Polish Air Force in Great Britain, where he served throughout the war as part of the Royal Air Force’s Polish personnel. Pilawski remained in the UK, showing his work widely and participating in a number of artist-led organisations and exhibition groups, including the Royal Academy of Arts and the Royal Society of British Artists. He also held solo shows at the prestigious Leicester Galleries (Ernest Brown and Phillips).
Painter Wieslaw Pilawski was born in Mścisław, Congress Kingdom of Poland (now Belarus) on 24 August 1916. He was educated in Vilnius, where he initially pursued legal studies at Vilnius University, before turning to art. His early artistic training was undertaken privately under the painters Karol Wierusz-Kowalski and Kazimierz Kulesza. The outbreak of the Second World War forced a major shift in his life, and by 1940 he had joined the Polish Air Force in Great Britain, where he served throughout the war as part of the Royal Air Force’s Polish personnel, as a wireless operator with the rank of Sargent. Following the end of the conflict in 1945, Pilawski remained in the UK and resumed his artistic education at the Polytechnic School of Art, Regent Street, London. He settled in Chelsea before later relocating to East Dulwich, south east London, where he continued to live and work as a painter. He became a naturalised British subject in 1960.
Pilawski developed a painterly style focused on oil painting and, though he never achieved a significant reputation, he was a member of several organisations and exhibited his works in exile during the postwar period. He was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the Chelsea Art Society and the Society of Fulham Artists. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition in 1965 (showing A View of Peckham Rye from my Window), Royal Society of British Artists (RBA), and the National Society, placing him among a network of British and émigré artists who gained exposure through these well-regarded institutional platforms. He also had group exhibitions at the Wilton Gallery in London throughout the 1950s, and a three-person exhibition at Derby Museum and Art Gallery in 1953. In 1954, his paintings of yachts at the exhibition of the Society of Fulham Artists were described as 'delightful,' (West London Observer, 1954, p. 4). The following year, at a Chelsea Art Society exhibition he was described as an artist with a 'bold approach to painting and an eye for colour,' (Barclay, 1955, p. 4). His paintings also featured in Recent Paintings by Wieslaw Pilawski, a solo exhibition at the notable venue, Ernest Brown & Phillips (The Leicester Galleries) in November 1956. His work received attention in both English and Polish art circles, and was reviewed in respected publications, such as The Connoisseur, Art News and Review, and the Polish press in London, which also reproduced several of his paintings. In a Wilton Gallery exhibition in 1956 his works were described as ‘harbour scenes and landscapes which appear to have been dashed off with a combination of reckless abandon and meticulous eye to detail.’ (Westminster & Pimlico News, 1956, p. 4).
Pilawski’s paintings reveal a sensitive and direct engagement with everyday life, memory, and landscape. His 1950 work Corpus Christi captures a religious procession with expressive brushwork and a rich tonality, blending figuration with a subtle modernist approach to form and rhythm. In contrast, The Granary, Norfolk shows his command of texture and palette through a compact, gestural handling of paint, evoking rural architecture through abstraction. The Thames at Putney offers a lighter, more observational mode, marked by clarity of light and a focus on the rhythms of daily river life. In Conversation Piece, his interest in figural intimacy and psychological presence comes to the fore, while the 1958 Portrait of a Naval Officer in Uniform combines dignity with painterly immediacy. Collectively, his work balances realism with expressive and post-Impressionist freedom.
Wieslaw Pilawski died in England on 16 August 1972. His works are not part of any public collections in the UK. The information currently available on Pilawski is limited and the Ben Uri Research Unit welcomes contributions from researchers or family members who might know more.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Wieslaw Pilawski]
Publications related to [Wieslaw Pilawski] in the Ben Uri Library