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2007
Warsaw Townscapes - Exhibition of Maria Kiesner’s Paintings
11 January – 30 March 2008
The Historical Museum of Warsaw is putting on an exhibition of 13 paintings by Maria Kiesner, a young artist from Warsaw. Maria Kiesner attended the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts from 1998 to 2002, where she studied painting with Jan Modzelewski and obtained her diploma. In 2006-2007 she was awarded a scholarship by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Her work was displayed at 13 individual and 30 collective exhibitions.
Maria Kiesner draws her inspiration from old picture postcards showing townscapes and architecture. “The streets in her paintings are deserted and the buildings, lit harshly from one side, seem abandoned,” writes art critic Ewa Morka. “There are no people inside. The townscape looks as if a storm was about to break out, as if peace was merely apparent. The artist employs subdued colours, metallic greys and subtle beige hues. The buildings are depicted realistically, though with a certain schematism, reduced to their most essential features, as if they were mere façades, models only, devoid of interiors. The paintings can be divided into two groups: «portraits» of individual buildings, such as the roof of the Supermarket on Unia Lubelska Square; and townscapes, in which windows, doors and street grids create the rhythm of the composition,” writes Ewa Morka in the exhibition brochure.
Although Kiesner’s cities are deserted, she asserts that her art is really a tribute to the people absent from her paintings, the people who created the buildings she paints. Yet, the cities are not a utopian dream, but rather a melancholy reflection of nameless longing that is in each of us.
The exhibition of Maria Kiesner’s art will be open at the Historical Museum of Warsaw, 42 Old Town Market Square, from 11 January to 30 March 2008.
The inauguration of the exhibition will take place on 10 January at 6 pm in the Museum foyer.
Media sponsor: “Gazeta Wyborcza”
Exhibition curator – Zofia Morka
Ousted from Warsaw 1944 - fates of children
10th September 2007 – 30th December 2007
The exhibition „Ousted from Warsaw 1944 - fates of children" is devoted to historical research on deportations of population, wich took place in Warsaw since August to October 1944, with particular considering experiences of the youngest inhabitants of Warsaw (up to 15 years). During the Second World War there wasn't any european cities, that suffered so much, as
On September 1 1939 Germans undertook aggression against
On September 17 the Soviet Army, breaking valid pact of non-agression, overstepped eastern borders of
Thus began the occupation lasting five years.
On August 1 1944 at 5 p.m. weakly armed detachments of the Home Army in a force of about 25 thousand men engaged in a fight against the German garrison, in a force of nearly 20 thousand soldiers. The Warsaw Uprising began.
International situation caused, that the Poles were isolated in that fight. Stalin purposely stopped ofensive of the Red Army, wich occupied positions on the right bank of
After first successes of the insurgents, the Germans mobilized fastly added forces to suppress the uprising. In accordance with an order of Adolf Hitler, and chief of SS and the police Heinrich Himmler, every inhabitant was to be killed. Brigade of criminals of Oskar Dirlewanger, directed to pacify the city, made a massacre on Wola district, without saving women and children. In executions in that district over 40 thousand persons lost their lives. Bestial murders on population of Ochota district was committed by collaborating deteachments of RONA (Russkaja Osvoboditielnaia Narodnaia Armia - Russian Liberation National Army).
People, who saved their lives, were driven by the Germans out of the homes, after capturing consecutive districts, and were directed to a transition camp in Pruszków near
There is many photographs and documents connecting with children who were banish from
