Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz

Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz (1919 – 2005) was a sculptor and author of concepts for memorial sculptures, spatial compositions and informal sculptures, medals and bookplates. His artistic practice can be divided into several formally distinct periods. At first, his figurative and expressive sculptures focused mainly on themes having to do with war. It was during this period that he made his most famous public work, Mały Powstaniec (Boy Soldier) on commission for the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 1946 as a memorial to the child soldiers of the Warsaw Uprising of the Second World War. This small-scale sculpture was reissued as an official monument and placed in the Old Town district of Warsaw in 1983, in spite of certain objections Jarnuszkiewicz had to the idea. In the 1940s, he continued to work on military-themed works, along with taking on a role in the Office for Capital Reconstruction, under the brilliant modernist architect Bohdan Lachert. He was responsible for art planning in buildings that were under construction in the demolished capital. He experienced a brief moment of fascination for social realism, during which he devised the monumental façades of the MDM in Warsaw, featuring the larger-than-life reliefs of the steel worker and teacher. During this period, he also made several sculptures inspired by the work of Henry Moore, such as Two and Rowers. A pivotal moment in his career was the moment when he picked up metal sheeting as a sculptural material, which he used to create expressive works like Suki or the geometric-analytical Spatial Composition. In the final years of his life, he devoted himself mainly to sacral sculpture and monumental works, such as the monument to John Paul II and Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński on the grounds of the Catholic University of Lublin. (Source)