Polish painters exhibited in New York

Although celebrated at home, the two painters were little-known in the US until recently.

"Quite unexpectedly, both artists have experienced a sort of comeback in the United States," said Marek Bartelik, curator of the exhibition.

According to Bartelik, Pągowska was "one of the first Polish women artists who as early as the early 1960s had addressed the issue of the female body in Polish art in a conscious way."

Józef Czapski, besides being a painter, was also a soldier during World War II.

He was captured by the Soviets while serving in the Polish Army. Although imprisoned in one of the camps from which inmates were later killed in the Katyń massacre, he was one of 395 Polish soldiers who were transferred and avoided death. He was released in 1941.

He later joined the Anders Army, and until April 1942 was an official envoy of the Polish government-in-exile looking for missing Polish officers in Russia.

In 1949, Czapski published The Inhuman Land reflecting on his wartime ordeal.

A distinguished painter, he lived in exile in Paris following the war, as a Moscow-backed communist regime was installed in Poland.

The exhibition, titled Returning to New York: Józef Czapski and Teresa Pągowska, is open at the Green Point Projects gallery until December 31. (tf/vb)