For this survey, 38 of Poland's leading artists are presented by a leading curator or art critic, along with numerous illustrations of his or her latest, most important works and a succinct biography. Among the artists featured are Pawel Althamer, Cezary Bodzianowski, Katarzyna Kozyra, Robert Kusmirowski, Dominik Lejman, Wilhelm Sasnal, Monika Sosnowska and Piotr Uklanski.

This groundbreaking work examines four avant-garde groups that emerged in Poland towards the end of World War I; the Poznan Expressionists, the Young Yiddish, the Formists, and the Futurists. It is the first extensive study to bring the four groups together, and in doing so it establishes interconnections between them, and discusses their work in light of socio-political and cultural currents in Poland and wider Europe in the interwar period.

Showcasing the extraordinary achievements of the proponents of Polish modernism from the 1890s to 1918, this ground-breaking book brings together pioneering research with beautiful imagery. Mloda Polska, or Young Poland, embraced the integration of fine and applied arts, motivated by a desire to establish a distinctive national style at a time of political uncertainty. Patriotic values were expressed through a diverse visual language that was fuelled by national identity, but also looked beyond Poland to Western Europe and the influences of Impressionism, Expressionism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, while also displaying parallels with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Young Poland's painting has been discussed within an international arena, but its decorative arts and architecture has yet to enjoy broad exposure. Here, for the first time, the considerable achievements of the movement's applied artists will be discussed, both from a national and international perspective. Highlighting Young Poland's integration of fine and decorative arts, the movement's ideological, stylistic and formal commonalities with British Arts and Crafts, and the vision of Ruskin and Morris, will be drawn out to provide fascinating insights for Western and Eastern audiences alike.

KEYNOTE: This generously illustrated book explores the best works of contemporary art from Poland by a generation of artists who have made their careers since the fall of communism in the country in 1989. Polish artists such as Monika Sosnowska, Wilhelm Sasnal, Piotr Uklanski, Katarzyna Kozyra, and Robert Kusmirowski, among many others, enjoy considerable international renown and their works feature in major galleries and collections of art around the world. This book demonstrates how the fantastic and the magical, the mad and the absurd have been powerful forces in contemporary Polish art. Often sharply critical of the changing world in which they live, these artists sustain a tradition of dissent and critical reflection which is deeply-rooted in Polish culture. For this generation of artists, like others before them, fantasy has not been a way of escaping reality but of challenging it. To trace these deep roots, the essays in this book examine contemporary Polish art in the context of masterpieces by figures like Tadeusz Kantor, Magdalena Abakanowicz, and Bruno Schulz. AUTHOR: David Crowley is a lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London. Zofia Machnicka is Deputy Director of the Polish Cultural Institute in Brussells. Andrzej Szczerski is a lecturer at the Institute of Art History of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. ILLUSTRATIONS: 170 colour

An in-depth look at Polish painting with profiles of 48 notable Polish artists.