Wanda Czelkowska

edited by Matylda Taszycka
A tribute to Wanda Czelkowska, one of the leading artists of the Polish avant-garde
Wanda Czelkowska (1930-2021) was a key figure of the Polish avant-garde, whose oeuvre remained almost unnoticed by art history until recently. She started her career near the end of the 1950s in Kraków and played an important role in the development of conceptual art in Poland.
Member of the famous Grupa Krakowska – whose other fellows included: Tadeusz Kantor, Tadeusz Brzozowski, Jonasz Stern, Maria Jarema and Erna Rosenstein – she kept her independent voice and never fully committed to the artistic discourse and social life of the group. Those who knew her, often refer to her as someone who treads her own, separate path.
Unlike her contemporaries, Alina Szapocznikow and Magdalena Abakanowicz, her work remains largely unknown outside of Poland. This is despite her recent retrospective at Królikarnia (2016-2017), National Museum in Warsaw.