Polish Gdańsk 1928. Jan Gumowski’s Graphic Portfolio

Views of Gdańsk as a masterpiece of Polish visual propaganda? What is more, officially commissioned by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1928, Jan Gumowski’s graphic art portfolio was published, in which he presented the historic architecture of Gdańsk. The Polish authorities financed both the artist’s stay in the city and the making of the prints. The views themselves were selected to emphasise the connections between the Gdańsk of old and Poland.
Gumowski’s portfolio contains almost exclusively views of those historical landmarks that could be historically associated with the Polish presence in the city: images of Polish kings, Polish coats of arms, and buildings connected with Polish arts patronage, such as the Royal Chapel, founded in part by King John III Sobieski. The portfolio was, therefore, a manifestation of Poland’s claims to Gdańsk.
While the artist’s several-week-long stay in Gdańsk was paid for by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which also financed the printing of the portfolio, lithographic prints of Gumowski’s works were made in the printing house of. . . the Ministry of Military Affairs. The propaganda dimension of the work was also apparent in that each print was captioned not only in Polish but also in French and English. The foreign-language captions were often more extensive than the Polish ones to explain the ties between the motifs and Poland to foreign viewers. The publishers also made sure that the message reached audiences beyond Poland. With support from the Polish Fund for National Culture, the portfolio was sent to the Library of the British Museum in London and other destinations.
The exhibition at Zielona Brama (Green Gate), Gdańsk, shows both the lithographs that make up the portfolio and the original pencil drawings that were their prototypes. A historical commentary goes with each pair. The drawings, almost wholly preserved (18 of them), were acquired by the National Museum in Gdańsk in 2021. They are now being presented to the public for the first time.
Curator: Prof. Jacek Friedrich
Coordinator: Małgorzata Ruszkowska
Visual identity: Dominika Gzowska
Education coordinator: Emilia Kalinowska
Publicity coordinators: Klaudia Ficak, Paweł Burian