ABOUT THE ARTIST

Władysław
Brzosko

Władysław Brzosko, a son of a Polish prisoner of the Czar of Russia, was born in Czyta, Siberia, in 1912. After the October Revolution of 1917 his father worked as a railway engineer and Władysław spent his childhood travelling across Russia, China and Japan. While visiting an art museum in Vladivostok, Brzosko became fascinated by Russian landscape painter Ivan Aivazovsky and soon began to train as an artist.

Upon his return to Poland in the 1930s, he enrolled in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts where he studied under Professors Kotarbinski and Skoczylas. During the years of German occupation, Brzosko participated in the Polish Underground (AK) and witnessed the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto in April and May 1943. The memory of this event haunted him for years after emigrating from Poland in mid-1950s. Brzosko devoted the next ten years to working on his "Warsaw Ghetto Series," an extensive cycle of paintings and drawings, as a tribute to the Jewish people.

After the war, Brzosko worked for several years as an architect and art conservator in the Gdansk area (northern Poland) while painting marine landscapes and other subjects. From 1956 to 1960, Brzosko lived in Paris among prominent artists and continued his painting. In 1960 he moved to New York City where, until recently, he maintained a studio on the Upper West Side. For seventeen years Brzosko supported himself as a night custodian at the New York Public Library and painted during the day. His devotion to his art was so absolute that he declined better job opportunities.

Pictured in photo “Wladysław Brzosko en plein air, 1970’s”

Brzosko's body of work consists of numerous landscapes of New York City, Arizona, and Paris; portraits; still lifes and other genres. In addition to his oil paintings he completed countless preparatory sketches in ink, pencil and watercolor, which are in themselves distinguished pieces of art. Most of his early work perished during the war or was abandoned before escaping Poland in 1956.

In 1973, Brzosko’s portrait of Copernicus was exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution symposium celebrating the astronomer's 500th birthday. In 1984 he received a gold medal for his painting Artist in his Studio exhibited at the Salon des Nations in Paris. Since the 1940s Brzosko's work has been exhibited in Europe and in the United States. Władysław Brzosko died peacefully at his home in Arizona on May 26, 2011 at the age of 98.

Pictured in photo “Brzosko Wladek, 1980’s”

Artist
Biography

Compiled & written by Judy Brzosko, wife of the late artist.

In 1923, Brzosko moved with his family to Poland where he finished his education. Against his father's wishes, Brzosko chose to attend the Academy of Art in Warsaw, instead of pursuing a career as an architect. His father promptly disowned him, but an uncle, supportive of his endeavors, helped him obtain a position teaching sports and athletics in a boarding school to help him pay for his own artistic education. Brzosko trained at the Warsaw Academy of Art between 1932 and 1938 under professors Skoczylas and Kotarbinski.

His early career was interrupted in 1939 by the invasion of Poland, and he joined the Polish Army. During the war, Brzosko was a member of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa), working undercover in the forests. Despite the war and the risk of discovery, he managed to maintain homes in Sopot and Warsaw and was able to help several Jewish families to flee or hide, thus surviving the Holocaust. Names of these families have been provided to Yad Vashem.

Władysław Brzosko (1912 - 2011) Born in Siberia on October 23, around 1912. He was a third child of a Polish prisoner exiled by the Russian Czar. Following the Bolshevik uprising in 1917, Brzosko's family was freed, and he traveled with his father to Vladivostok, Tokyo and Northern China.

It was on a visit to a museum in Vladivostok that Brzosko viewed his first oil paintings. Upon seeing the marine paintings by Aivazovski, he declared "I will be an artist." His father engaged a Chinese art teacher to begin training Brzosko when he was about 7 or 8 years old.

Pictured “Wladysław Brzosko, March 2008,” by Eva Garcelon

At war's end, with the capital city, Warsaw, and much of the nation decimated by long years of tank and air bombardment, Brzosko began a career as an architect/conservator in the three northern states of Szczecin, Gdansk, and Olsztyn. He served as a conservator of art for major museums and churches, ordering repairs and restorations of buildings and monuments as well as storage of artworks that were at risk.

In 1956, Brzosko moved to France and then to the United States in 1960. Upon his arrival in New York, his first goal was to complete a series of paintings about the April 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an event he says he could not get permission from the artists' union to paint in Poland. The project evolved through many charcoal and watercolor sketches, resulting in four major oil paintings, called simply Blue Canvas (canvas I), Yellow Canvas (canvas III), Korczak (canvas II) and Umschlagplatz (canvas IV). On each canvas a multitude of people huddle or fight in war tableaus against the backdrop of the burning city.

Pictured “Artist looking at his portfolio, March 2008,” by Eva Garcelon

The series was nearly complete by 1967 when three of the canvases, the Blue (named by art historian, Alfred Werner, "Warsaw Ghetto Recollections") and the Yellow (which Dr. Werner called "The Final Struggle"), as well as the tribute to Janusz Korczak, were exhibited along with about 30 drawings and watercolors from the series, at the Herzl Gallery in the Jewish Agency Building on Park Avenue in New York (April 1967). Dr. Alfred Werner, an art historian and contributor to the journal Art News, wrote in the introductory brochure for the exhibition "…the impact of the drama is felt and the artist has captured the essence of a great moment in history."

In 1975 Brzosko's portrait of Copernicus (Nicolai Kopernik) was exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution symposium celebrating Copernicus' 500th birthday.

In 1984, he received a gold medal for his painting Artist in the Studio, exhibited at the Salon des Nations in Paris along with a large number of his oil paintings including both compositions and landscapes.

One of Brzosko's most recent exhibitions was at Middlebury College in Middlebury, VT in October 2008. For the first time, all four of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising oil paintings were shown together along with about 30 drawings from the series.

Previously, he showed two dozen works at the Mohave County Museum in Kingman, AZ (1991) and had a show of 22 Arizona landscapes in oil pastel and watercolor at the Sun Cities Art Museum in 1986. Director of the Sun Cities Art Museum, Richard Teitz, said of these works: "He has a feel for the atmosphere and the color harmonies of the desert." Of his style Brzosko said, "My art is very simple. I am a modern realist concerned with problems of composition, form and color."

Biography compiled and written by Judy Brzosko, wife of the late artist.

Brzosko en plein air , 1970’s

Brzosko en plein air , 1970’s

Artist in his studio, March 2008 - by Eva Garcelon

Artist in his studio, March 2008 - by Eva Garcelon

Brzosko Paris , 1959

Brzosko Paris , 1959

Featured
Exhibits

  • Four large panels of the "Warsaw Ghetto Series" and several preliminary sketches are on display at the Holocaust Memorial Center during the exhibit entitled "Commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, April 19-May 16, 1943" from December 2010 through the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 2011. See also press release.

  • Four large oil compositions: Blue, Yellow, Korczak and Umschlagplatz from the "Warsaw Ghetto Series" were on display as a part of A Month to Stamp Out the Hate exhibit at the Barness Family JCC in Chandler, Arizona.

  • Warsaw Ghetto Series: Designs and Paintings

    (exhibit curated by Eva Garcelon-Hart)

    The "Warsaw Ghetto Series" consists of four large oil paintings: Blue, Yellow, Tribute to Janusz Korczak, and Umschlagplatz, and about 1,000 preparatory sketches. The four main compositions and 28 charcoal, watercolor and pastel sketches were on display at the Johnson Gallery of Middlebury College in October of 2008. Selections from the Warsaw Ghetto Series was exhibited only once, prior to Middlebury exhibit, at the Herzl Gallery in New York City in 1967. Presently several paintings are on display at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Michigan.

    Władysław Brzosko witnessed the Warsaw ghetto uprising and annihilation of its Jewish population in 1943. Haunted by these memories, he spent almost ten years working on the series after immigrating to the United States in 1960. The result is a deeply personal vision of the ghetto destruction and a moving commentary on the heroic struggle of an ill-fated people trapped in the tragic circumstances of war. Noted art historian, Alfred Warner, wrote about Brzosko's paintings: “…Brzosko’s canvases are reminiscent of the large battle compositions with countless figures painted by the great masters of the Renaissance… the impact of the drama is felt and the artist had captured the essence of a great moment in history.”

  • W. Brzosko was awarded gold medal for his self-portrait: Artist in Studio. The medal was awarded unanimously to Xavier Carbonell from Spain for his painting of Cyclist.

  • Brzosko's Copernicus portrait was displayed during a symposium celebrating 500th anniversary of Copernicus.

  • Warsaw Ghetto Recollections: Designs and Paintings

    Exhibit at the Theodore Herzl Institute in New York City was Brzosko's first one-man show in the United States devoted to the Warsaw ghetto uprising and its destruction. By the late 1960s he just completed four large oil canvases and hundreds of preparatory sketches based on his personal recollections of Warsaw ghetto uprising in April 1943. The Warsaw Ghetto Series was recently exhibited at the Johnson's Gallery of Middlebury College, Vermont (2008); the Chandler Family JCC, Arizona (2009); and the Holocaust Memorial Center, Michigan (2010-2011). Below is an essay by a prominent art historian, Alfred Werner, on Brzosko's Warsaw Ghetto Series.

  • Annual from 1955-1960

  • Annual from 1948-1950

  • Yearly group exhibit from 1946-1958