Stanisław Wyspiański (1869–1907)

Playwright, poet, stage designer, father of the modern Polish theatre. Studied painting at the School of Fine Arts with Jan Matejko. Even as a student, he worked on the restoration of St Mary’s Church. Wyspiański practised highly diverse arts, which he embarked on with great daring and panache, making plans for the revival of historical sites – especially Wawel Castle – and created mural and stained glass decorations; art manager for Życie: a magazine gathering modernist men of letters; painted extensively; made illustrations and prints. His artistic oeuvre encompasses: portraits and self-portraits, floral motifs drawn, sketched, and painted in oil or pastels, designs of murals and stained glass decorations, designs of furniture and interior design, architectural design of the development of Wawel Hill; he also wrote dramas, poems... Together with Józef Mehoffer, Wyspiański designed 36 stained glass panes for St Mary’s Church in Kraków, while assisting in preservation works conducted in the church by Matejko from 1889. He designed stained-glass and mural polychrome decorations for Kraków’s Franciscan Church, including the famous stained-glass window God the father, let there be..., stained glass decoration for Wawel Cathedral with St Stanislaus, King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki), and King Henry the Pious (Henryk Pobożny) which was only completed in 2005–2007 in Wyspiański Pavilion, the decoration of the Exhibition Hall of the Society of Friends of the Fine Arts (1904), the Apollo stained glass decoration, and decorations of the staircase in the Building of the Physicists’ Society.

His most important dramas include Varsovian Anthem (Warszawianka), The Curse (Klątwa), The Wedding (Wesele), Liberation (Wyzwolenie), and November Night (Noc Listopadowa).

The artist found his non-admission to work on the restoration of Wawel in 1904 a severe blow, as he had great expectations for the project: in his drama Acropolis, he presented Wawel as a symbolic site, merging together biblical and antique traditions, Polish history and culture, and European civilisation. Together with the architect Stanisław Ekielski, he embarked on a plan for developing Wawel into the spiritual, political, and cultural centre of Polishness. Controversy that surrounded the drama Acropolis contributed to a conflict with the Kraków theatre that ended in a ban on staging Wyspiański’s works, and early in 1905 the City Council rejected his candidacy for the post of the Director of Municipal Theatre, choosing Ludwik Solski instead. In 1906, Wyspiański was made Professor of Kraków Academy of Fine Arts; he was also an alderman of Kraków City Council, and one of the founders of the Sztuka Society of Polish Artists. He was buried in the crypt intended to house the remains of famous Poles in the Church “na Skałce”.



Autoportrait by Stanisław Wyspiański, 1902, from the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw