Xawery Dunikowski

Xawery Dunikowski was born in Kraków, a city he had an affinity for and would also use as the basis for a collection of art. When he was twelve his family moved to Warsaw, and after finishing his education in a technical school he studied sculpture under Bolesław Syrewicz and Leon Wąsilkowski. At twenty one, Dunikowski moved back to Kraków to study sculpture at the School of Fine Arts under Konstanty Laszczka, admirer of Auguste Rodin, and under Alfred Daun. He studied painting with Jan Stanisławski and after being enrolled for three years, he graduated with honors. In 1902 Dunikowski began teaching sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, a professorship he would hold until 1909 when he was appointed the Chair of Sculpture Department at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. On January 18, 1905, amid a quarrel in a Warsaw restaurant, he shot and killed Wacław Pawliszczak, a fellow artist and popular Warsaw society figure. As a result, he was arrested and then released on a 2,000 rubles bail, while being charged with manslaughter (crime of passion). However, he was never really tried by the Tsarist justice apparatus, which at that time was busy with the Revolution of 1905, as well as other problems. Being an Austrian subject, he was subsequently allowed to return to Kraków, and never actually did any jail time or paid any retribution for his crime to the victim's family. Heading to Paris shortly before the beginning of World War I, Dunikowski remained in France from 1914 to 1920 (he served 5 years in the French Foreign Legion) until he returned to Kraków in 1921 to take the position of Head of Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts there. While working at the academy, he educated many Polish sculptors including: Jerzy Bandura, Zygmunt Gawlik, Józef Gosławski, Maria Jarema, Ludwik Konarzewski (junior), Jacek Puget and Henryk Wiciński, and Polish-American woodcarver Adam Dabrowski. Dunikowski did not leave Kraków until 1940 when he was arrested by the Gestapo. ¹ Dunikowski was arrested by the Germans on 15 May 1940 and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 26 June 1940. In Auschwitz, he was assigned the number 774. The detainment has interrupted his work on a series of sculptures entitled Heads from the Kraków Palace, based on busts found up on the ceilings of Renaissance castles. Auschwitz had demoralized the artist up to a point where he said that he had died there and refused all requests, mainly by Schutzstaffel (SS) guards, who urged him to make a model of the camp. ¹ He was released from Auschwitz on 8 April 1942, thanks to the efforts of his friends and the Polish underground movement. He returned to Kraków, where he resumed his work at the academy. He also joined the resistance movement and helped to hide Jews from the Nazis. He created many sculptures inspired by his experience in Auschwitz, such as the Monument to the Martyrdom of the Polish Nation and Other Nations in Auschwitz (1958), the Monument to the Victims of Fascism in Katowice (1960), and the Monument to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto (1964). He also created many portraits of famous Polish figures, such as Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Józef Piłsudski, and Ignacy Jan Paderewski. He died in Warsaw on 26 January 1964 and was buried at the Powązki Cemetery. ¹ Dunikowski was a highly rebellious and defiant artist. His creative path was characterized by the restless variety of his artistic searching and his abundance of original solutions. He was influenced by various artistic movements, such as realism, impressionism, expressionism, and symbolism. He experimented with different materials, such as wood, stone, bronze, and ceramics. He was also a prolific painter and graphic artist. He is regarded as one of the most original and influential Polish sculptors of the 20th century. ²