Mathis Piotrowski, or rather Maciej Tadeusz Piotrowski, was born on 15 January 1920 in Kraków1. He was the second of three sons (Andrzej, Wojtek) of Tadeusz Piotrowski (1988-1949), a doctor of law and professional officer in the Polish Army, and Irena (née Orszulska), a pianist.

From an early age, Maciej was surrounded by music and art, his uncles being well-known and respected artists: Józef Piotrowski (brother of Tadeusz) and Roman Orszulski (brother of Irena). As we read in the catalogue Mathis Piotrowski. Bildhauer, 1920-1978, the former "impressed the boy with his fresh post-impressionist colours; Roman Orszulski with the purity of his applied art "2.

Piotrowski attended the 4th Henryk Sienkiewicz State Gymnasium in Krakow and the Krakow Conservatory, where he studied piano. [il. 1] In 1939 he obtained his high school diploma. The outbreak of the Second World War prevented Piotrowski from continuing his education at Kraków's Academy of Fine Arts, where he wanted to study painting. On 3 September he volunteered for the 5th Armoured Battalion "Kraków", with which he took part in the September campaign. He was then interned in the Zebegeny camp in Hungary, where he was allowed to study painting with the avant-garde artist Róbert Berény near Budapest. However, by December 1939 he had already made his way to Yugoslavia, then Italy. He finally reached France, where he was recruited into the 2nd Infantry Rifle Squadron under the command of Brigadier-General Bronislaw Prugar-Ketling3. The Squadron joined the 45th Corps of the French Army, at whose side it repulsed attacks by German armoured units, in gruelling and fruitless battles at Saint-Hippolyte, Maîche, Damprichard and Tréviller. With ammunition running out and the 45th Corps broken and destabilised, the decision was taken for the 2nd Infantry Rifle Squadron to cross the Swiss border on the night of 19-20 June 1940. More than 12,000 Polish soldiers were interned. The Division was deployed all over Switzerland, Piotrowski was sent to the University Camp (Hochschullager) in Wintherthur4, where he stayed from November 1940. [Fig. 2] Piotrowski, thanks to the internees being allowed to attend lectures at the University of Applied Sciences (ETH), began to study architecture under O. R. Salvisberg, William Dunkel and Otto Baumberger. He then attended lectures in archaeology and art history by Linus Birchler, before finally deciding on sculpture, under Hans Gisler.

In 1944, Piotrowski married a Swiss woman, Anna Brandenberger thus permanently tying himself to this country. He set up his first sculpture workshop on Jonas-Furrer-Strasse in Winterthur, and one of his first commissions was the wooden sculpture Landing in Normandy for the Polish Museum in Rapperswil (1944, Polish Museum, Rapperswil).

In 1946, together with groups of artists from Winterthur, he had his first exhibition at the Kunstmuseum there. From the 1940s come such sculptures as, bronze portraits of the painter Albert Bosshard (1945, privately owned) and the composer Richard Strauss (1947, privately owned).

From 1946 to 1951 he worked at the Migros Klubschule in Winterthur as a teacher of modelling, sculpting and drawing, then resumed this work in 1966. He taught classes with great commitment and passion, and in the following years would also organise an art forum.

In 1951, Mathis Piotrowski and his family moved into a house with a spacious studio in Hard-Wulflingen, where he was able to realise larger projects. In the early 1950s, he made sculptures such as the Polish Summer/Polnischer Sommer made of cherry wood (1950, work destroyed), Christ/Christus made of pear wood (1951, family collection) or the bronze portrait of Pablo Casals (1952, property of Musikkollegium Winterthur) [figs. 3, 4]. To make the portrait of the Catalan cellist, Piotrowski travelled to his home in Prades. The time spent with Casals also resulted in an article that Mathis wrote for the Winterthur newspaper Arbeiterzeitung (23.II.1952). [ill. 5].

His career as a sculptor was gaining momentum, and in 1952 Piotrowski had his first solo exhibition at the Gewerbemuseum in Winterthur. The following year, larger public commissions began for Mathis. His first commission was a cast bronze sculpture set up in front of the entrance to the co-operative pharmacy in Winterthur (1953) [fig. 6] depicting two children drinking, coiled at their knees, a snake. The second sculpture, White Bear/ Eisbar from 1957, was placed in the garden of a kindergarten in Winterthur. In that year Piotrowski, after 17 years, obtained Swiss citizenship. This allowed him to participate in national and international competitions.

In 1961 Piotrowski received a large commission to realise a multi-dimensional sculpture for the Gutschick (Winterthur) housing estate. He designed a pair of 6.20-metre-high acrobats set on a several-metre-high plinth. [ills 7, 8, 9] To realise such an ambitious and demanding project, the artist used aluminium sheets welded using the anaerobic method. The use of this material guaranteed Piotrowski the load-bearing capacity, lightness and stability of the sculpture. In an interview for Panorama of the North (1967, no. 3), Mathis Piotrowski described this technique as follows:

"Through the planes obtained from the joints and folds of the panels, I use ultraviolet rays and - don't be surprised - also the experience of the work of a skilled welder. Using the plane technique, I recently created the sculpture Acrobats, set up in a new residential area in Winterthur".

In turn, the catalogue cites a description of the creation of Acrobats, in which the artist mentions the difficulties involved in precisely cutting the metal sheets and working out their thickness:

"It was particularly important here to take into account the thickness of the material. A displacement, even by a few fractions of a millimetre when the surfaces were joined together, caused such three-dimensional errors that the difference could already be measured a few centimetres higher in decimetres. The search for the source of the error then proved particularly difficult and often meant days of work, as all the planes were continuously 'stitched' together.

The actual welding, once the figures were positioned and stitched together, presented little difficulty. When the two figures were individually welded together, they were placed one on top of the other and welded together "5.

The unveiling of the Acrobats sculpture took place in the spring of 1963. It is impressive in person and corresponds perfectly with the surrounding tall residential buildings.

In the following years, Piotrowski continued his adventure with aluminium. At that time, he created sculptures in which he experimented with the thickness of the welds making them a decorative element. The sculptures Clown in a Dream/ Verträumter Clown (1962, private property), Clown Study/ Clown-Studie (1962, family collection), and Witch/ Hexe (1963, family collection) [ill. 10] are examples of this.

The artist then used aluminium for his compositions of abstract forms. These were: Wrack (1964, destroyed work), Distel (1964, destroyed work), Flamme (1965, privately owned) or Puzzle (1970, family collection) [ill.11]. In later works, however, Piotrowski used this material for a series of sculptures depicting geese in flight. The motif of the migrating bird was associated by the artist with his homeland, Polish folklore and folk art. It was also a pretext for studying self-supporting compositions, the rhythmic structures of the work and the depiction of movement. These examples are Geese/ Schwäne (no date, Winterthur) [ill. 12, 13], the relief Flight of Geese/ Fliegende Schwäne (1963, Winterthur) [ill. 14], Birds/ Vögel (no date, Museum of Polish Aviation in Krakow) [ill. 15] and Flight/ Aufflug (1974, Winterthur) [ill. 16, 17]. Perhaps they constituted a preparation for the artist before undertaking a more ambitious project - capturing a human being in flight. In the interview quoted above, the artist confided:

"I have been passionate about capturing certain right movements or gestures for a long time. (...) However, my greatest dream is to find an artistic synthesis of the flight of a man who has overcome his own weight, detached himself from the Earth and has now entered the Cosmos. I will consider the achievement of this intention as the greatest work of my life".

In 1964, Piotrowski had his second solo exhibition at the Gewerbemuseum in Winterthur. In the same year, the artist, together with Rolf Lipski from Zurich and Eugenio Eichenberger from Winterthur, exhibited his works at the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Krakow. [ill. 18] He held his third exhibition in his atelier in 1966, during which he presented around 40 drawings and sculptures from the previous five years. The next exhibition, which was to take place at Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery, was scheduled for September 1968. Despite Mathis's long preparations, it never took place because, as we read in the catalogue, the artist cancelled it in protest against the Warsaw Pact troops' invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The second half of the 1960s was full of many works and successes for the artist. In 1966, Mathis won a competition for the decoration of a school building in Rickenbach. He then made a metal sculpture of Departure/Aufflugi, which was placed in front of the building in 1968. In 1967-68 Piotrowski realised for the Polish embassy in Zurich a memorial to the soldiers of the 2nd Rifle Squadron who died in Switzerland, which was unveiled at the military cemetery in Leysin-Lorrets on 1 November 1968. This is the sculpture that Piotrowski had the greatest affection for6. In 1967, he won first prize for his sculpture The Growing Crystal at the Zurich International Sculpture Competition.

During this time Piotrowski produced a series of sculptures depicting the atrocities of war. An eloquent example is the sculpture Abel (1966, work destroyed) made of oak wood [ill. 19] depicting the bust of a young soldier who has eye sockets instead of eyes, and a large hole in the place of his heart and head. Other examples of sculptures referring to the theme of war were Warsaw/Warschau (1966, destroyed work) or the iron sculpture Devil's Monstrance/Des Teufels Monstranz (1967, family collection). Also in the drawings Arc de Triomphe / Arc de Triomphe (1966, private property) [ill. 20] and Riders of the Moon / Mondreiter (1966, private property), the artist's message about the cruelty of war and the loss of humanity is blunt. He also critiqued current socio-political issues, and this is reflected in the works: Strike/ Streik (1964, private property), Parade/ Parade (1969, family collection) or Border/ Grenze (1973, private property) [ill. 21].

In addition, from the 1960s come such sculptures as the marble Lying/ Liegende (1967, privately owned) and Pike/ Hecht (1968, family collection) and the white gold patina-finished Dolphin/ Delphin (1968, family collection) [ill. 22].

In 1970, Mathis Piotrowski organised the aforementioned art forum at the Migros Klubschule. At these meetings, he lectured his audience on art history, enriching his arguments with current artistic events. He also taught art history at the vocational school in Winterthur, for which he realised the sculpture Rise/Aufflug (1974). In 1972, he was listed as one of 64 prize-winning artists in a national competition for the artistic design of courtyards and terraces for the new buildings of the Taubenhalde Federal Administration in Bern. In 1973 his work Forget-me-nots was awarded in the "Let's create Together" competition organised by POLSKA/POLAND magazine, and appeared on the cover of the 9th issue of this magazine.

In the following years Piotrowski created a series of anecdotal drawings Rybaczka/ Fischermädchen (1974, family collection), Gęsia dziewczyna/ Gänsemädchen (1974, family collection), Wschodzące słońce/ Aufgehende Sonne (1974, private property), Noc/ Nacht (1976, private property). Of the sculptures, however, he realised the marble Snake/ Schlange (1975, family collection) [fig. 23, 24], in which he masterfully brought out its tense form, combining the rough texture of the animal's skin with the polished glossy surface of its head.

In 1977, for the municipality of Weisslingen, he realised the multi-dimensional, abstract sculpture World in the Heart/ Welt im Herz [ill. 25-29]. As the catalogue reads: "The sculpture (...) exudes something cheerful and poetic. It is the artist's call to children to welcome the world into their hearts. It is a call for love and peace, not only for the little ones, but for all people; the artist knew all too well what war and peace are".

The last completed public commission is the sculpture Bear Playing with a Ball/ Eisbär for the Niederfeld housing estate in the Wülflingen district of Winterthur (1957) [figs. 30, 31, 32]. Piotrowski's idea was to create a sculpture that children could play with. Made of aluminium, the form of the animal lying on its back and holding a ball in its paws can rotate on its base like a merry-go-round, the translucency of the sculpture allows one to see between the bear's paws and the material allows for easy cleaning in case of possible vandalism.

In 1978, after a break of several years, Piotrowski visited Poland and during this stay he gave a short interview to Polish Television [ill. 34]. This was his last visit to his homeland. On 14 October 1978, at the age of 58, he died in a car accident together with his wife. He left behind four children: Irena, Katharina, Stefan and Gabriela. Posthumously, Mathis Piotrowski was awarded the Medal of the Protector of Places of National Remembrance and the Order of Merit for Polish Culture.

In 1980 (8 March - 20 April), an exhibition in memory of the artist was organised at the Gewerbemuseum in Winterthur, which included 30 sculptures and 80 drawings and sketches created after 1946.

Mathis Maciej Piotrowski was a versatile, independent artist who did not belong to any grouping. [ill. 35, 36] His works were valued for their dynamism, finesse, craftsmanship. One sensed in them Polish-Romantic roots combined with Swiss austerity and restraint. In a short note published in Przekrój (1978, no. 1751), the author quotes a fragment of a letter Piotrowski wrote to his friend:

"Love of country, of my homeland - this is the strongest of motives to which I owe everything I have achieved."

As a draughtsman, he mainly used pencil or charcoal, less frequently tempera and chalk; as a sculptor, he worked in a wide range of materials using various processing techniques. He commented on his choice of material and the subject matter of his work as follows:

"Sculpture, widely recognised as one of the most difficult arts, involves a long and thankless period of practice. Without mastering a technique, which please do not associate with academicism, there can be no art in this case. For me, the period of overcoming technical difficulties was particularly arduous, as I make equal use of wood, stone, plaster and various metals.

I do not have favourite subjects. Experience dictates my creative intention, and the conception of the artistic shape determines the material, each of which offers different possibilities for the play of light and colour "7.

In his family's memoirs, Mathis Piotrowski is portrayed as a character who was extremely concerned with his impeccable appearance and expected the same from others. He was very temperamental and impatient. He was always extremely focused on his art, which he executed with the utmost care and a great love of his craft. In the interview already quoted, he revealed:

"I consider many of my works, made between 1942 and 1958, to be unsatisfactory; it gets to the point where I persistently seek out sometimes sculptures from this period to smash them up, to destroy them completely, I am so dissatisfied with them "8.

Some of the works are in the collection of family members, above all with the artist's son Stefan Piotrowski, who also keeps an extensive archive including sketches, documents, photographs and newspaper cuttings. Other works belong to the city of Winterthur or are in private collections.

It is worth noting at this point that most of Piotrowski's public sculptures and bas-reliefs do not bear any plaque with information about the artist. The exception is the relief Swimmer/Die Schwimmerin located on the building of the municipal swimming pool in Rickenbach [ill. 37]. In the case of the sculpture Bear playing with a ball, the artist's signature 'M. Piot.'78'. He similarly left his signature on an altarpiece made in 1958 for the St Laurent Roman Catholic Church [ill. 38, 39] (Winterthur, Wülfingerstrasse/Oberfeldweg 28).

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In compiling this text, conversations with family members Stefan (son), Gabriela (daughter) and Diana (granddaughter) proved to be an invaluable source of information. At this point I would like to thank them immensely for all their help and cooperation.