Xawery Dunikowski (1875, Kraków – 1964, Warsaw), "The Heads of Oświęcim"

Provenance
DESA Unicum, September 2017
private collection, Warsaw

Biography
Xawery Dunikowski, one of Poland’s most outstanding sculptors, was born in 1875 in Kraków and died in 1964 in Warsaw. He began studying sculpture in 1894 at Bolesław Syrewicz’s studio in Warsaw and later studied under Leopold Wasilkowski. From 1896 to 1898, he studied sculpture under Alfred Daun at the Kraków School of Fine Arts. He continued his studies at the Kraków school under Konstanty Laszczka until 1903. In 1902, his first solo exhibition took place at the Society of Friends of Fine Arts (TPSP) in Kraków. From 1904 to 1910, he served as a professor of sculpture at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts. Around 1906, he set out on an artistic journey to the Middle East (Syria, Palestine) and Italy. In 1908, he joined the “Sztuka” Society of Polish Artists, with which he had been exhibiting since 1903. From 1915 to 1921, he lived in Paris. From 1920 until the outbreak of World War II, he was a professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. Arrested in 1940, he was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp until liberation. From 1946 onward, he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. In 1954, he moved to Warsaw and began teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts, and from 1959 onward, he also headed the sculpture department at the State School of Fine Arts in Wrocław. His muse and partner was the artist Sara Lipska (1882–1973), a brilliant interior decorator and designer working in Paris. Dunikowski created sculptures in the Symbolist style, including extraordinary busts and portrait studies; he was also the author of numerous designs for monumental monuments.