Topolski feliks biography sample

His work has appeared in publications around the world and he exhibited in three continents. In he was awarded the gold medal of honour by the International Fine Arts Council, and in received an honorary doctorate from the University of Krakow. This journey, recorded in drawings, photographs and text, was subsequently published under the title Travels with my Father by Daniel Topolski in In the late s 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 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. In the final year of the war, he accompanied the Polish 2nd Corps in the advance up the Adriatic coast, and other Polish forces in the Low Countries.

He was in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp two weeks after its liberation in April , and later worked as an official war artist at the Nuremberg Trials. The record of these years appeared as Three Continents In , he had married the actress, Marian Everall. They would have a son and a daughter; the son, Daniel, became well known as the successful coach of the Oxford university boat crews.

While becoming a British subject in , Topolski continued to survey and travel the world. However, the return to his war-ravaged homeland had proved particularly painful. From into , he made an extended tour that took in India, Burma, Indochina, Macao, Singapore, Japan and the United States, during which he was often treated like a foreign dignitary, so gaining access to people and places withheld from foreign journalists.

This is exemplified by The Cavalcade of the Commonwealth , a commission for the Festival of Britain of , which Topolski based on drawings that he made on his recent tour. Similarly, he returned to the drawings that he made during the Coronation of Elizabeth II, on 2 June , to fulfil a commission from the Duke of Edinburgh, in , to produce a mural that still hangs in Buckingham Palace.

It also provided the raw material for other projects, including portraits and, ultimately, his Memoir of the Century , a panoramic series of murals begun in and continued until his death, also housed in the arches of Hungerford Bridge. It now provides the setting for a bar. In , his first marriage was dissolved, and he married the architect, Caryl Jane Stanley.

As a portraitist, Topolski worked on the title sequences of the pioneering BBC television series, Face to Face , providing likenesses of the 33 iconic interviewees, from Augustus John to Adam Faith. In , the American television network, CBS, commissioned him to visit Moscow to record the May Day Parade, the resulting programme, based on his drawings, being shown in the united States over the Christmas.

This is exemplified by The Cavalcade of the Commonwealth, a commission for the Festival of Britain of , which Topolski based on drawings that he made on his recent tour. Similarly, he returned to the drawings that he made during the Coronation of Elizabeth II, on 2 June , to fulfil a commission from the Duke of Edinburgh, in , to produce a mural that still hangs in Buckingham Palace.

It also provided the raw material for other projects, including portraits and, ultimately, his Memoir of the Century, a panoramic series of murals begun in and continued until his death, also housed in the arches of Hungerford Bridge. It now provides the setting for a bar. In , his first marriage was dissolved, and he married the architect, Caryl Jane Stanley.

In , he gained British citizenship. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the Summer Olympics. Topolski's experiences were initially captured in pencil and ink drawings. These were the first stage of his prolific Chronicles , which appeared fortnightly from to , interrupted only to accommodate his exploratory investigations across the globe.

The Chronicles communicated his art and observations to a wider audience. They were independently published, without advertisements or subsidies. Since his death in , Topolski's Chronicles have retained respect as a pictorial and political record spanning nearly 30 years of world history. Joyce Cary wrote, it is "the most brilliant record we have of the contemporary scene as seized by a contemporary mind.

Topolski was provided a studio under one of the arches of Hungerford Bridge in , where he worked consistently until his death in He was commissioned to produce a 60 foot by 20 foot mural under the arch over Belvedere Road for the Festival of Britain , unknowingly painting only two arches up from his eventual studio.

Topolski feliks biography sample

Now the Studio functions as an archive and exhibition space operated by Topolski Memoir, the charity set up to preserve the artist's legacy. Topolski was provided with three further arches in by the Greater London Council , where he painted his epic foot long, 12—20 foot high Memoir of the Century. Telling his broad-ranging experience of the 20th century, he painted the work from until his death, writing that he hoped to die working on it, with a brush in his hand.