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"Forbidden Art" Exhibition at the Eisenhower Presidential Museum in Kansas
The "Forbidden Art" exhibition is currently on display at Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas, the place where the general and president of the United States was born and brought up, which is also the site of his burial. The exhibition prepared by the Auschwitz Memorial presents stories behind 20 artworks made illegally by prisoners of Nazi German concentration camps who risked their lives to complete them.
The opening date of the exhibition was by no means accidental. The 6th of June marks the 70th anniversary of the D-Day, the military operation led by no one else but General Eisenhower.
The exhibition presents works of art made illegally in the camp. These are drawings documenting the reality of the camp, but also examples of art being an escape from the cruel reality. Among these, works can be found by Zofia Stępień, Halina Ołomucka, Józef Szajna, Franciszek Jaźwiecki, Włodzimierz Siwierski, Mieczysław Kościelniak, Peter Edel, Josef Sapcaru and others, including prisoners whose names and surnames are not always known. Enlarged and backlit photographic reproductions have been placed in specially designed wooden exhibition panes, which relate to the architecture of barracks. Each work is accompanied by historical commentary and relating archival fragments.
The exhibition is divided in two parts. The first part shows the reality of the camp—various scenes from the functioning of the camp as well as portraits of prisoners. The second part offers a look at various kinds of escape from camp reality: caricatures, albums containing greetings as well as fairy tales written by prisoners for their children.
One part of the opening ceremony was devoted to a lecture on camp art and history of Auschwitz camp, delivered by Teresa Wontor-Cichy, historian from the Research Center of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. She quoted e.g. an excerpt from the account given by an artist whose piece is on show at the exhibition: Mieczysław Kościelniak, Auschwitz prisoner and well-known painter, who was transported during the evacuation of Auschwitz to Mauthausen camp where he managed to survive until liberation by American troops.
Kościelniak sketched hastily the moment when tanks entered the camp. One of young officers noticed him, stopped to get a better look of the prisoner so, in a flash, Kościelniak sketched his portrait, too. The officer came closer and, surprised by the result, declared that he would revere and cherish this portrait, drawn on the day of camp liberation, for the rest of his life. The sketched American turned out to be Captain Georg Brennan, Reconnaissance Squadron commander, soldier of the Third United States Army under the command of George Smith Patton.
Kościelniak was transferred to camp hospital where he made portraits of American officers as souvenirs. The news about it reached General Patton himself, who demanded a life-size oil portrait. He posed in helmet for working sketches for the portrait. Satisfied with the result, he offered American citizenship to the artist out of gratitude, but Kościelniak decided to return to his homeland.
At the same time, the camp and its survivors were visited by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, of whom Kościelniak made three portraits. Those works of art were probably transported to the US together with the rest of army equipment.
Apart from the photographs, the "Forbidden Art" exhibition presents two glass figurines made specially for this occasion in 3D print. The celebration was accompanied by choir performance of members of the Kansas State University Summer Choral Institute, who sang the Polish national anthem "Mazurek Dąbrowskiego" ("Dąbrowski's Mazurka") and a variety of songs composed during World War II. The opening was attended by veterans of World War II who had taken part in northern France landings, by representatives of Polish diaspora in America and of the Polish diplomatic corps.
The first part of Kansas festivities was devoted to military celebrations, with the participation of honour guard and many commanders of the troops that stationed in Kansas. The next part was devoted to speeches of veterans and witnesses of those events.
Presentation of the "Forbidden Art" exhibition in the US is possible thanks to the co-operation of the Museum and the Polish Mission of the Orchard Lake Schools.
