(1907 - 1989)
FELIKS TOPOLSKI painter, draughtsman and illustrator, was born in Warsaw, the son of an actor. He studied at the Academy of Art in Warsaw, and then in Italy and Paris. He settled in England in 1935 and became a British subject in 1947. From 1940-45 he was appointed Official Polish War Artist, and visited every front except the Pacific, producing a prolific record of the Second World War which was widely published. He developed a habit of working at speed, and his work has a quality of immediacy as a result. An artist reporter, he travelled to every major historical event for over forty years, and sketched many leading world figures. His work has appeared in publications around the world and he exhibited in three continents. In 1955 he was awarded the gold medal of honour by the International Fine Arts Council, and in 1974 received an honorary doctorate from the University of Krakow. At the age of seventy-three he decided to join his writer/photographer son, Daniel, on a six-month journey through South America. This journey, recorded in drawings, photographs and text, was subsequently published under the title Travels with my Father by Daniel Topolski in 1983.
In the late 1970s Topolski installed his 'Memoir of the Century', a labyrinthine mural chronicling the main events of the twentieth century as he perceived them, in his studio underneath the arches of the viaduct at the end of Hungerford Bridge near the Royal Festival Hall in London. He worked continuously on this 'Memoir', which became a 'Diary' for recording pictorially events as they took place, for the rest of his life. It remains there in its original site as a memorial to him, still open to the public (together with his studio) as it was during his lifetime. A copy of Topolski's own account of his 'Memoir', and how it came into being, is enclosed.
In 1953 Topolski was one of a number of artists who were commissioned by the Ministry of Works to record the Coronation, and numerous sketches he made of the occasion now belong to the Government Art Collection. This opportunity was the starting point for the Coronation murals which he painted for Buckingham Palace in 1958-60. He was also a portrait painter, and in 1961-62 he painted twenty portraits of English writers for the University of Texas.
Topolski's work is represented in many collections both in Britain and abroad, including the National Museum in Warsaw.
