Give the IPS to Szukalski: Stanisław Szukalski’s Bid for the Institute of Art Propaganda

Abstract

There is an interesting document in the collection of the Kornel Makuszyński Museum, which is a branch of the Tatra Museum in Zakopane. It is a three-page-long text written in the second half of the 1930s by one of the most controversial Polish interwar artists, Stanisław Szukalski (1893–1987), entitled IPS dać Szukalskiemu [Give the IPS to Szukalski], IPS standing for the Art Propaganda Institute. With his characteristic nonchalance, this remarkable sculptor, draughtsman, writer and art theorist, all in one person, recommended himself as director of the Art Propaganda Institute in Warsaw. Yet the eccentric Stach from Warta (which was Szukalski’s artist alias) provided no information about the names of either Polish or foreign artists whose works he would display should he be granted this post; nor did he state why or for what reasons he would or would not display them. This paper introduces the curious contents of Szukalski’s statement, which until now has remained unknown to scholars, and is an attempt to answer some of the above questions.