Aleksander Sochaczewski – artist unknown

Aleksander Sochaczewski, or actually Lejb Sonder (1843-1923), is an artist who, in the circulation of the past of Polish art, is not a well-known figure, that is to say, poorly or at all recognizable.

There are respective reasons for this. He is not a artist whose works are located in many Polish museums. His work refers to 1 subject – exiles to Siberia, the lives of exiles and executioners after the fall of the January Uprising. Another reason for this deficiency of "popularity" is that he created his works after returning from exile. But this return could not take place on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland. He was forced to emigrate, which could be considered an additional punishment imposed by the Czarski authorities. As a result, he had to stay in Munich and Belgium. Although he lived in Lviv for any time, he created his works during his stay in Munich and Brussels. In 1913, his series of works on exile was donated to the city of Lviv and were stored there until 1956. At this crucial time besides for cultural policy, the authorities of the USSR then passed it on to Poland. As a compact collection since 1967, this collection has been continuously exhibited in the Museum of the 10th Warsaw Citadel Pavilion – Branch of the Museum of independency in Warsaw. And that is another reason for the deficiency of popularity of this artist.

The question may arise here, why was the X Pavilion chosen to be the site of the exhibition of this collection? To clarify this, we must go back to the second half of the 19th century. In 1862, A. Sochaszewski participated in an unsuccessful assassination of Alexander Wielopolski. As a consequence of an investigation conducted by the Tsarist police, he was arrested and as a prisoner, he was just imprisoned in the 10th Citadel Pavilion. After the outbreak of the January Uprising, he was sentenced to 10 years of katorgi and then to 10 years of forced settlement. After serving his conviction and returning from exile in 1884, he did not get the consent of the possessive authorities to stay in the Kingdom of Poland and settled for any time in Lviv.

A careful reader of this introduction most likely noted that there was information about the place where his work was presented in 1 place. Undoubtedly, in relation to Polish museums, specified a situation should be considered exceptional. For if there are facilities which have a crucial part of the artist's painting legacy, his works are besides found in another museum galleries. In the case of A. Sochaczewski she is completely different. Here, in the Museum of the 10th Warsaw Citadel Pavilion we are dealing with an almost complete artistic legacy. I utilized the word “almost”, for a reason. In the Warsaw National Museum is his ‘Self-Portrait with Pallet’, dated 1890-1910. In addition, in fresh years the Museum of independency has purchased 2 further works of the artist. 1 from a private bidder, the another at an auction in Belgium. This is besides the reason why A. Sochaczewski's work is at least not known.

Another reason for specified a situation is the monothematicity of his painting. The images that came out of A. Sochaczewski's brush concern only 1 subject: the Siberian katorga and exile, a life distant from the native country of Siberia. One more fact worth emphasizing, referring to the place of A. Sochaczewski's work. He was undoubtedly an artist talented with talent. During his artistic studies he gained the ability to usage painting technique. After all, he attended the Warsaw School of Fine Arts, where he was a student Joseph Simler. His patriotic activity, resulting in another 20 years in Siberia, caused him not to participate in his artistic life. He was separated from the environment of Polish artists, a group of Munichers, or the alleged "Paris School". All these factors mentioned here have caused his/her individual to be absent from the artistic environment even after returning from Siberia to Europe.

A. Sochaczewski's work – Museum of the 10th Warsaw Citadel Pavilion as no another is the best place for this presentation. Here in 1862, a young artist was sent as a prisoner. Here in 1863 he was convicted and from this place he set off for catorgy. Due to its collection, the Museum is obliged not only to exhibit it, but besides to effort to popularize it. vulnerability alone is undoubtedly insufficient. So what does the Warsaw Museum do in this regard?

The first improvement of this collection was published in 1993 [1]. For many years this release was the only improvement of the artist's work. Another occasion for the latest presentation of this collection was 2 anniversarys in 2023. In January 2023 we celebrated the 160th anniversary of the outbreak of the January Uprising. The second was the 100th anniversary of the artist's death. Both became an excellent chance to print a fresh album dedicated to A. Sochaczewski and his works. Although not only the painting, which the reader will shortly be able to see.

At the outset of the presentation of this publication, the nature of this publication should be clearly defined. It is undoubtedly an album of the collection presented in the Museum of the 10th Warsaw Citadel Pavilion. It contains reproduced all the exhibited works of A. Sochaczewski. Like any specified publication, it was provided with texts that introduced the reader – possibly it would be better to usage the phrase "watcher" of the album, due to the fact that the albums are viewed – into the atmosphere described with the brush of history.

Of course, the first component of this part is the introduction – “About Siberia with a brush and a pen” by the manager of the independency Museum Dr Tadeusz Skoczek. In the short as intro, the text is sketched both by A. Sochaczewski. It besides discusses various activities undertaken by the Museum in this Jubilee year. He stresses that the publishing home is simply a joint work of the Museum staff.

The author of the second much more extended article is Margaret Carolina Piekarska – "Aleksander Sochaczewski artist in service of a tortured nation". The author connected 2 threads. 1 is the biography. It is intended to enable the reader to know the destiny of the artist. It is besides intended to show the impact of his destiny on painting created after years. And here we come to the second subject of this article. The author tries to accurately present what the artist said through his works. This analysis was carried out not only due to the context of the artist's work. She's devoted quite a few attention to history. For what we are going to talk about, this painting legacy of A. Sochaczewski is simply a peculiar diary concerning exiled fates.

Sochaczewski's name is clearly associated with the work of the artist-painting artist. And that was actually the domain of his artistic life. And while we can talk about very small cognition of painting, almost nobody knows about his writing. He is besides the author of the novel. The reader will besides find these texts in the presented publication. The collection of these novels bears the author's title “In Siberia (A fresh Political Envoy)”. Their only release took place in 1906, and was released thanks to a Berlin publisher, Dr. Dremder. In order to print them for the first time in Polish, in 1983 a translation was created on behalf of the Museum of past of the Polish Revolutionary Movement. [2] Its author is Barbara Siebat. As in the case of painting works, besides the stories were preceded by an article, the author of which is the late Dr. Anna Milewska-Młynik. The method of introducing the reader in the content of the fresh is almost identical to that of painting. The text introduces the reader to the life situation of the author-man. He besides points to the characteristics of this work and through this prism he besides shows the views (the life base) of the artist. This is simply a description of the destiny of the exiles, the author himself. He knew perfectly well what life was like, and fundamentally the existence of executioners and exiles looks like. He knew these people, their characters, their cares and suffering. He frequently called them death. Alone, distant from family, from loved ones and friends. He painted it all with a brush and besides described it with a pen.

An essential part of each album is, of course, the illustration material. The authors of this survey – which should be stressed here – proposed a very clear and logical arrangement. It is opened by the reproduction of the largest but besides crucial for the full pictured past – "Goodbye to EuropeIt’s okay. ” This painting with awesome dimensions (340 x 750 cm) is besides known under another but akin titles: "On a snowy road” or “Envoys on the Siberian border”. The author himself in the 1900 catalogue called it “At the border of SiberiaIt’s okay. ” This painting opens the full era. His pronunciation is peculiar for another reason. It featured various types of exiles and the way they were marked. There were besides all kinds of criminal prisoners in each convoy next to those convicted of political crimes. Each group was marked differently. It was in this painting that A. Sochaszewski besides showed this issue. The depiction itself papers this tragic story. But there were besides sketches made by the artist for the purposes of the painting. The album reproduced all 42 sketches in the Museum's collections and on display. This is simply a very conscious procedure, due to the fact that the reader (the viewer) has the chance to analyse the method of the artist's work.

Subsequent reproductions in the album are individual paintings by A. Sochaczewski. As before, many of them are accompanied by sketches prepared for the needs of emerging images. On many of them were portrayed people known by name. They're the ones who shared this causative destiny with the artist. There are besides depictions of scenes from exile life, which do not mention to circumstantial characters. All these works illustrate the tormentive and emasculating everyday life.

The full collection closes a set of coal-made works. any of them only in a delicate way, very sparing were colored, most frequently utilizing 1 color. Their pronunciation was emphasized by the usage of coal drawing method on ungrounded canvas. This strictness of the drawing method is an additional item of the fatal fate. We can besides guess that these are sketches for paintings that the artist did not create.

The last work that has been published here is simply a drawing of convict heads made on paper. It is simply a guide to the image "Good-bye Europe". The author himself mapped the distribution of the characters' heads on his painting, numbered them and in the bottom left corner recorded their names. It is worth noting that No. 4 refers to A. Sochaczewski himself. The improvement of this last reproduction is the comment at the end. This is an alphabetical overview of the characters' biographies that have been identified in this largest image. It is besides worth noting that any of these characters besides appear in subsequent works of this cycle.

The album prepared and published by the Museum of independency is simply a catalogue of the exhibition on the 1 hand and a catalogue of 1 of the elements of the museum collection. But not just that. It is besides the improvement of the biography of A. Sochaczewski. This publication first published the literary texts of this artist in Polish. These reasons make this a very crucial publication. The first one, which in specified a comprehensive way reflects the life and work of this somewhat forgotten and overlooked artist in the past of Polish art. besides bad. His achievements, although so monothematic in the field of painting and writing, are notable. We must remember that the paintings painted by A. Sochaczewski were created during the dynamic improvement of photography. But they mention to earlier times erstwhile this fresh field of art was in its infancy. It is so hard to require that in Siberia the environment of executioners and exiles was documented utilizing this fresh technique. Well, if the messenger could have had paper and pencil to sketch his impressions. And erstwhile he returned from this planet to average life, he could stand before the easel and put on canvas what was behind him. How strong this must have been the impression gained during 20 years of his stay in Siberia, how hard they were in the artist's consciousness that this world, these people, their experiences, tragedies, and frequently death moved to the canvases exhibited in the Museum of the X Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel and besides through the released album. Although this is simply a difficult, martyrdom subject, we can effort to look at these paintings besides as works of art. Let's look for aesthetic impressions. Although this is an highly hard task, it is worth trying. So to try, you gotta scope for this album.

Andrzej Kotecki

‘Aleksander Sochaszewski. About Siberia with a brush and a pen (artistic image of the January Uprising and katorga)’. Album edited by Tadeusz Skoczek; Museum of Independence, Warsaw 2023, p. 255.

[1] Helena Boczek, Beata Meller, "Alexander Sochaczewski 1843-1923: artist of the Siberian category (life, creativity and collection history)", Warsaw 1993.

[2] The Museum of independency in Warsaw was created in 1990 from the merger of the Museum of past of the Polish Revolutionary Movement and the Lenin Museum. The fresh facility took over the collections of both museums. She besides inherited the translation utilized in this publication.

Poland, No. 5-6 (28.01-4.02.2024)