Author Description

Paris et les artistes polonais 1945-1989 / Paris and the Polish artists 1945-1989 is a volume dedicated to Polish-French artistic relations after the Second World War, in times dominated politically by communist ideology and defined by Poland’s place within the camp of the countries of ‘people’s democracy’. Since the 1950s, the Polish authorities, discreetly opposed to the political and cultural ideology of Soviet socialist realism, generally rejected in 1955 by artistic circles, promoted modernity based on a model of art-shaped in France – a country that supported Poland politically (with the involvement of the French president Charles de Gaulle) and where the Left held a strong position, with ties to the Communist Party of France. The pro-French policy of Poland (in terms of culture, too) also resulted from the desire to marginalize London as the seat of the Polish government in exile.