When a fire gutted the London studio of the prolific painter and draughtsman Feliks Topolski (1907-89) in 1968, the Polish-born artist was surprisingly cheery. In an article in the Times, Topolski was quoted as feeling “immense relief” after the fire. “An artist has to grow, to move on instinctively to the next stage. And sometimes it is difficult to do that when you are bogged down by your past,” he said.
Twenty-six drawings, including some that may have been recovered from the blaze, are due to go on display at the Wolfsonian-FIU in Miami Beach in November after being treated by the Philadelphia-based Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts to deal with creases, tears, paper loss, old tape and discolouration from foxing, grime and fingerprints. They feature in An Artist on the Eastern Front: Feliks Topolski, 1941, an exhibition exploring the artist’s role as one of the great artists of the Second World War—an aspect often eclipsed by his later work as a caricaturist for the BBC programme Face to Face and for his self-published Chronicles.
Manicures and shining shoes The graphite and ink sketches were created in autumn 1941, when Topolski travelled with an Allied convoy to the Soviet Union as the invading German army advanced on Moscow. Intermingled with images of military personnel and the wreckage of downed German bombers are scenes of everyday life: women getting manicures, men having their shoes shined and people gathering to listen to government broadcasts on loudspeakers. His sketch of Red Square is reminiscent of a postcard, with the true crisis of the situation revealed only by the presence of a column of Soviet soldiers marching in the background.
“What makes these drawings really compelling is the fact that they depict ordinary life in Russia at a moment when the whole country’s fate was hanging in the balance,” says Jon Mogul, the show’s co-curator and the institution’s assistant director for research and academic initiatives. They were executed quickly, reflecting Topolski’s “energy and curiosity about the world”, Mogul says.
• An Artist on the Eastern Front: Feliks Topolski, 1941, Wolfsonian-FIU, opens 21 November