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Kasimir Malevich/ Kazimierz Malewicz/ (1879-1935) was born in Kiev in a Polish family. He spent his youth in Ukraine. He presented his mature works in Russia. Knowledge of Polish and Ukrainian languages, experience of the colorful world of Kiev and Podole villages and the fascination for icons are what remained from his childhood. Living in Russia he created non-objective art style called suprematism, its most famous painting became “Black square”, and full of poetry artistic theory of forms and colors floating in the air. He presented his first foreign exhibition of his all works in Poland, where he was going to live. Malewicz came to Warsaw on 1st March 1927 on his way to Paris via Berlin. He stayed in Poland for exactly one month. He never reached the capital of France. He returned to the Soviet Union from Germany summoned by the Soviet government at the beginning of June. Imprisoned and harassed for some time, first of all due to the Warsaw exhibition and abstract works, he was forced to give up suprematist painting.
Kazimierz Malewicz’s exhibition in Warsaw took place in the room of Polish Artistic Club on the first floor of Polonia Palace Hotel. The artist came to Poland on his friend’s, Władysław Strzemiński, the founder of Modern Art Museum in Łódź, suggestion and officially invited by painters and architects from “Praesens” avant-garde group. He soon became friends with Polish artists and intellectuals in Warsaw repeatedly meeting a group of painters concentrated around Henryk Stażewski, a group of avant-garde poets connected with Tadeusz Peiper’s “Zwrotnica” magazine and a group of architects- functionalists under Szymon Syrkus‘s leadership.
During the exhibition, very well received by the Polish press, the artist delivered a lecture on the newest tendencies in the world art and explained the sense of his artistic search. The leading representatives of Polish artistic life, intellectuals and politicians gathered during a banquet in his honor held on this occasion in Polonia Palace Hotel. On the exhibition in 1927 Malewicz presented all the most important paintings from his works. Cubist and futurist paintings and, first of all, geometrical compositions of colorful and white suprematism were put next to his earliest works called neo-primitive.
An exhibition of Malewicz’s drawings commemorating his first exposition took place in Polonia Palace Hotel in 2007 at the occasion of 80th anniversary of Kazimierz Malewicz’s exhibition. Warsaw Hotels “Syrena” management board and Modern Art Museum in Warsaw jointly organized an exhibition of the artist’s drawings coming from private collections and documents form the exhibition in 1927. The exhibition was a tribute to the great art creator of the 20th century and a reminder of an important event in the Polish culture history as well.
One of the presentable conference rooms in the hotel was given Kazimierz Malewicz’s name in May 2009. During the ceremony 130th anniversary of the artist’s birthday was celebrated. Documentation commemorating the artist’s first exhibition in the hotel was placed in the Kazimierz Malewicz’s room. It is probably one of few forms of commemorating the artist in Poland. A short biographical note is placed next to the room. Polonia Palace Hotel, referring to the outstanding artist’s stay, wants to cultivate its own pre-war traditions in its marketing strategy, surrendering in a sense to prevalent ressentiments manifesting in revival of pre-war fashion and customs which were so brutally broken by the course of history.
Iwona Malewicz President Of The Board of Syrena Hotels |
