Dulwich Picture Gallery’s Polish Baggage

Ian Dejardin, director, explains why he went to Poland and what he thought of the new Warsaw.

Dulwich Picture Gallery has some interesting Polish baggage amongst the jumble of its history. The last king of Poland, Stanislaw Augustus Poniatowski, was the man who commissioned our art dealer founders, Noel Desenfans and Francis Bourgeois (pictured left, attr. Paul Sandby, DPG 645), to put together a collection that was to be a national gallery for the edification of his people. Of course the whole thing went pear-shaped as Poland imploded, courtesy of Catherine the Great of Russia. But our Founders were born marketing men; as far as they were concerned it was a win/win situation – they had achieved court titles, and they just carried on buying and selling, but with added snob value – SUCH a useful attribute when selling old masters to the aristocracy.

Next year, I have learned, there is to be a Polish Season in the UK, and because of our history, I am plotting something for the Autumn. The most interesting aspect of this will be an installation by the very distinguished Polish-born artist Antoni Malinowski, both inside and outside the Gallery. But from the start Antoni was keen to evoke the presence of King Stansilaw Augustus in portraits. SO, to cut a long story short, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw, who are project co-ordinators for the Polish season, arranged for me to visit Warsaw earlier this month. I’d never been.

I found Warsaw fascinating -

physically flattened by the Nazis, then spiritually flattened by the Russians, the city bears lots of scars, but is definitely rising from the ashes in some beauty. The government has taken an interesting stand on how to go about this: on the one hand they have rebuilt the icons – the Royal Castle, the old town, the churches. Some decisions must have been difficult – to rebuild the Cathedral, they actually turned the clock back, choosing not to rebuild the Gothic structure that the Nazis destroyed, but the cathedral in a stronger Polish vernacular style that preceded it. Then, alongside these painstaking reconstructions, they have brought in all the usual suspects – Norman Foster (slide show), Zaha Hadid, Daniel Liebeskind – to pepper the 21st century city with the necessary (these days) shards of glass and steel. This delicate balance between old and new is what makes the process fascinating to watch – but disconcerting to someone like Antoni, who was born there but left in the 1970s.

Particularly interesting to me was the use of Bellotto’s famous views of the 18th century city to reconstruct some of the more glamorous aspects of the town, particularly the Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street – now a glamorous boulevard. I stayed there, in the Hotel Bristol – a gorgeously grand hotel where Marlene Dietrich used to stay, I was told. It too has been given the treatment, and it is difficult to tell how much of the fabulous art deco interiors are real or not. Things remain very Polish in places – I visited a tiny glove shop in the old town, where the owner-craftsman plied me with wonderful hand-made leather gloves, some machine-stitched, some stitched by hand (and all too small for my enormous hands – designed for playing Brahms not Mozart). But I also spent time in a Starbucks-lookalike called Coffee Heaven (very nice too) – and there was a Costa Coffee further down the street.

Meanwhile, I visited Stanislaw’s summer place, the Lazienki Palace, (pictured left and in slide show) which avoided destruction only because the Soviet troops arrived in time to stop the Nazis lighting the fuses – thousands of holes for dynamite had been drilled. It was gorgeous – fountains played, peacocks screeched, tourists traipsed, and actors declaimed in the charming outdoor theatre. And I ticked off all the major portraits of the King at the Royal Castle, the National Museum and the Wilanow Castle.

Some may find their way here next Autumn hopefully – watch this space.

ED:  In fact, they have!  Read about the coming exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, ‘The Polish Connection’ 2 June – 27 September