Artur Szyk (1894-1951) was an exceptional artist who created posters, caricatures, illuminated manuscripts, and miniatures, masterfully combining historical themes and cultural traditions with the issues of his own time. Born in Łódź, he spent most of his adult life in France and the United States, yet he remained deeply devoted to both Poland and his native city of Łódź:
Wherever I may be, I shall always work first and foremost for Poland. As a Pole, I reserve the rights to my works for my homeland above all other countries.
Szyk was a supporter of Józef Piłsudski and dedicated one of his greatest masterpieces, The Statute of Kalisz, to the Marshal. By portraying Piłsudski as the successor to King Casimir the Great, he expressed his hope that, under the Marshal’s leadership, Poland would be rebuilt as a strong and independent state.
Artur Szyk’s works are filled with symbols and meaningful details. Throughout his career, however, he consistently stood on the side of the weak and the oppressed, defending their rights with pen and brush. This recalls the activities of Józef and Maria Piłsudski in Łódź, whose principal weapon at the time was the printed word published in the underground press known as bibuła. It is not known whether “Robotnik” (“The Worker”), the illegal newspaper of the Polish Socialist Party edited by the Piłsudskis, ever reached the hands of the young Artur Szyk. What is certain, however, is that the future artist and „Comrade Wiktor” – the underground pseudonym then used by Józef Piłsudski – walked the same streets of Łódź at the close of the nineteenth century and would later remain close in their ideals.
Curator: Anna Łagodzińska-Pietras
Exhibition Design and Graphic Layout: Filip Appel
The pages of The Statute of Kalisz displayed in this exhibition come from the collection of Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna im. Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego w Łodzi (the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź). The reproduced digital copy of the dedication page is from the collection of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. The organisers gratefully acknowledge both institutions for making these materials available.
Organiser:
BIBUŁA
The Józef Piłsudski Museum in Sulejówek is jointly operated by:
- The Family Foundation
- the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage
Partner:
Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna im. Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego w Łodzi (the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź)
Special thanks to:
Ewa Baranowska, Elżbieta Domagalska, Marta Kapełuś, Joanna Mądrzak-Kubiak
The Statute of Kalisz – “the golden book of Polish Jewry”
Issued on 16 August 1264 by Duke Bolesław the Pious of Greater Poland, the “Statute of Kalisz” defined the rights and obligations of the Jewish population in Poland. Confirmed by King Casimir the Great in 1334, it was extended to the entire Kingdom of Poland and became the foundation of the security and prosperity of Jewish communities on Polish lands. It guaranteed Jews legal protection, freedom of trade, and freedom of religion – rights that were rare in medieval Europe. Since Jews were not permitted to own land or join Christian craft guilds, many were engaged in trade, finance, and crafts connected with ducal and royal courts. On the page depicted by Artur Szyk we see Jewish moneyers, symbolising the important role that Jews played in the economy of medieval Poland.
Artur Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz, page 6: Jewish moneyers
From the collection of the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as Paradisus Iudaeorum
At a time when Jews were being persecuted and expelled from many countries in Western Europe, successive Polish monarchs – from Casimir the Great to Stanisław August Poniatowski – reaffirmed the “Statute of Kalisz”, helping to build a tolerant and open Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Among the statute’s thirty-six articles were guarantees of legal protection, freedom of trade, movement, and religion for Jewish communities. Bolesław the Pious removed Jews from the jurisdiction of municipal courts, placing them under the duke’s own authority and granting them the status of servi camerae regis („servants of the royal treasury”), making them direct subjects of the ruler. This created favourable conditions for the development of Jewish self-government in Poland. Its best-known expression was the Council of Four Lands, the central representative body of Jewish communities, which operated between 1580 and 1764. Owing to its relative religious tolerance and opportunities for economic development, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came to be known as Paradisus Iudaeorum – the „Jewish Paradise.”
Artur Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz, page 8: Jewish merchants
From the collection of the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź
The canvas on which I embroidered the epic of Polish Jewry
Artur Szyk worked on the manuscript for two years (1926–1928), while the preparation of the luxury edition required another three years. The Statute of Kalisz consists of forty-five unique, richly illuminated pages, each of them an independent work of art. The text of the medieval document was calligraphed in nine languages: Latin, Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish. The illustrations combine historical scenes depicting the thousand-year presence of Jews in Poland with symbolic references to Szyk’s own times. The pages were reproduced using the heliogravure process and printed on coated paper by the F. Bruckmann A.G. printing house in Munich. The deluxe edition was published in 1932, although the work itself had already been exhibited earlier in Warsaw, Łódź, and Kalisz. The Statute of Kalisz remains one of Artur Szyk’s greatest artistic achievements.
Artur Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz, page 9: Jewish physicians
From the collection of the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź
I am a Jew, and Poland is my homeland. I cannot separate one from the other in my heart. The Polish-Jewish conflict, provoked above all by external forces, caused me deep pain, while the slanderous attacks of Poland’s enemies, who portrayed it as a land of oppression and anti-Jewish pogroms, filled me with indignation. In The Statute of Kalisz I celebrate one of the finest expressions of Polish liberalism in the history of Europe. I firmly believe that Poland’s great traditions of religious and national tolerance will prevail over the campaigns of militant nationalism.
Artur Szyk
Artur Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz, page 1: dedication to Marshal Józef Piłsudski (facsimile)
From the collection of the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw
A Jewish hero of Polish independence
Berek Joselewicz was one of the best-known Jewish heroes of Poland’s struggle for independence. Living at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, he was a merchant who managed the foreign business affairs of Prince Massalski, including in France, where he witnessed the French Revolution. After the outbreak of the Kościuszko Uprising in 1794, Joselewicz approached Tadeusz Kościuszko with a proposal to form a Light Cavalry Regiment of Old Testament Faith. An appeal issued jointly with Józef Aronowicz in Yiddish attracted around five hundred volunteers, who formed the first Jewish military unit in the history of the Polish armed forces. Joselewicz later served in the army of the Duchy of Warsaw and in Napoleon’s forces, becoming a lasting symbol of the commitment of Polish Jews to the cause of Polish independence. He was killed in action during the Battle of Kock in 1809. In The Statute of Kalisz, Artur Szyk portrays Berek Joselewicz as a hero of the shared Polish, Jewish, and French historical experience and as a symbol of the struggle for freedom.
Artur Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz, page 10: Berek Joselewicz
From the collection of the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź
Brothers in arms
Bronisław Mansperl belonged to the generation of Polish Jews who actively participated in the struggle for Poland’s independence. Born in Warsaw, he became involved in anti-Russian activities while still a young man, taking part in the school strike of 1905. During his studies in Paris, he joined the Riflemen’s Association (Związek Strzelecki). After the outbreak of the First World War, he served in the First Cadre Company and later in the First Brigade of the Polish Legions. In 1915, as a lieutenant, he was killed in the Battle of Kukle. Like Mansperl, Artur Szyk was associated with the Legions movement and the struggle for Polish independence. During the Polish-Soviet War, he designed patriotic posters and propaganda caricatures before volunteering for military service himself. The page dedicated to Mansperl commemorates their shared experience of service and sacrifice in the fight to restore an independent Polish state.
Artur Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz, page 11: Bronisław Mansperl
From the collection of the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź
The idea of a state of equal citizens
Despite his deep commitment to the cause of an independent Poland, Artur Szyk found it difficult to establish himself in the newly restored Second Polish Republic and left the country for Paris in 1921. For several years, he largely refrained from commenting on contemporary Polish politics in his art. The Statute of Kalisz marked his first clear return to these themes. In his work, Szyk recalled Poland’s long tradition of religious tolerance and the coexistence of diverse cultures. By dedicating the manuscript to Józef Piłsudski and portraying him as the modern successor to King Casimir the Great – long regarded as a protector of the Jewish community – Szyk expressed his hope for a state founded upon the principle of equal rights for all citizens, regardless of their origin or religion. For Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz was not merely a story about the past; it was also a statement about the future of the reborn Polish state.
Artur Szyk, The Statute of Kalisz, page 4: King Casimir the Great on the throne
From the collection of the Marshal Józef Piłsudski Provincial Public Library in Łódź