Ben Uri collection

Work by Feliks Topolski

Biography

Feliks Topolski (né Felicjan Typlel-Topolski) was born to politically progressive, assimilated Jewish parents in Warsaw, Poland on 14 August 1907. He trained at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts (1927–32), then briefly served as an artillery officer in the Polish army, afterwards contributing cartoons to a satirical journal. In the early 1930s he received scholarships to study art abroad in Italy and France. He arrived in England in 1935, commissioned by “Wiadomości Literackie” (“Literary News”) to record King George V’s Silver Jubilee. During the Second World War he was appointed an official war artist for the Polish government in exile, and then for the British government, commissioned to make drawings of life in London during the air raids of October 1940. He also visited the Russian Front for “Picture Post” magazine for six months from 1941-42 and made independent submissions to the War Artists' Advisory Commitee until the end of the war. Further travels took him to Egypt, Palestine, the Levant, India and Burma. He accompanied the Polish II Corps, arriving in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp two weeks after its liberation in April 1945; his drawings of the camp featured in Ben Uri’s 1947 exhibition, 'Subjects of Jewish Interest'. He subsequently worked as an official artist at the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. In 1951 he moved into a Studio on the South Bank, where he remained for the rest of his life, hosting open Fridays in the 1970s. In 1953 Topolski was commissioned to record Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, inspiring his Chronicle, a bi-monthly broadsheet (1953-79), capturing all aspects of a fast-changing society.

Topolski was also known for his portraits of writers including H. G. Wells, Graham Greene, John Mortimer and Evelyn Waugh, and politicians Harold Macmillan and Aneurin Bevan. He also painted murals, contributed to BBC programmes, and designed theatrical sets. He was elected a senior Royal Academician as a draughtsman in 1989.

Feliks Topolski died in London, England on 24 August 1989. His work is in UK collections including the Ben Uri Collection, the Government Art Collection, the Imperial War Museum, the Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Trust (Wightwick Manor).

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2 work/s by this artist from the collection are shown below. For a more detailed record and image please click on the link.

Camp Guards and Inmates after Liberation

Object type printed material

Accession number 2018-28

London 1944

Object type textile

Accession number 2021-02