Two generations, two waves of emigration, diverse artistic trends - this is a study of the life and work of Polish artists creating in France before and after 1945.

At the beginning of the 20th century, after the end of the First World War, when the French capital was at the same time the capital of the avant-garde in the fine arts, there appeared the first wave of emigrating artists from Poland, who quite quickly began to co-create the artistic and cultural life of Paris. Among them were prominent Post-Impressionists moving towards abstraction. Some even managed to join the leading artists of the European avant-garde and stand alongside Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris. Artists from the second Polish émigré wave in the 1960s were even more willing to turn to abstraction, sometimes alluding to Cubofuturism. Their interests also went in the direction of kinetic art and new materials. It was in France that many of them explored art, heading to art schools such as the École Nationale Superieur des Beaux-Arts, the Académie Moderne, the Académie André Lhote, the Académie de La Palette.

Leading artists of Polish origin at the time included. Henryk Hayden (1883-1970), Maria Sperling (1898-1995), Stanisław Eleszkiewicz (1900-1963), Stanisław Grabowski (1901-1957), Eleonora Reinholdt (1905-1984), Zdzisław Cyankiewicz (1912-1981), Michał Milberger (1922-1997), Jan Lebenstein (1930-1999), Roman Cieślewicz (1930-1996), Tytus Dzieduszycki-Sas (1934-1973), Edward Baran (b. 1934) and Witold Zandfos (b. 1938). They represented Post-Impressionism and avant-garde trends in France - Cubism, abstraction (lyrical and geometric), Tashism, Informel, and created kinetic sculpture and lumino-kinetic objects. Their output is characterised by various forms of artistic expression and sophisticated technique (including assemblage, collage, photomontage, gratage, torn or hollow paper, tapestry, monotype, estampage, aluminorite, wax-cut, etc.). Poles then began to incorporate plastics and the so-called objet trouvé into their works on a large scale as a novelty. The artistic versatility of some Polish artists also turned to the field of applied art - towards posters, the graphic design of magazines, the graphic setting of exhibitions, fashion shows, etc.

Polish artists, creating in France before and after 1945, were often winners of prestigious awards, members of international art associations, lecturers at French art schools. Outstanding artistic concepts of Poles participated in the most important international exhibitions. Almost all of them had individual exhibitions in France, Europe and the USA. Their outstanding works, which constitute Poland's tangible cultural heritage abroad, can still be found in the most valuable museum collections of the Pompidou Centre, Tate Britain, MoMa, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museum of Modern Art in Sao Paulo, as well as in numerous private collections (including those of Wojciech Fibak, Marek Roefler, M. and J. Wolanin in the USA or in the Zlotowski collection in Paris).

In 2020, despite numerous research problems related to the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the Polonica Institute continued its work, which began in 2018, on the 'Dictionary of Polish Visual Artists Active Abroad in the 20th Century'. The interesting, multifaceted and connoisseur-appreciated Polish artistic output was researched by Dr Katarzyna Kulpinska and Dr Magdalena Sawczuk under the supervision of Prof. Jan W. Sienkiewicz, PhD, as part III of the project. As a result of this work, the researchers compiled 25 biographies of native artists. They carried out searches at selected institutions in Poland, France and the UK. The materials will be available in the Institute's online database Polonica.