„[…] już nie mówiąc o sztuce ludów pierwotnych”. Szczecin, kultury pozaeuropejskie i polska kolonizacja „Ziem Odzyskanych”

Abstract

‘[…] not to mention the art of primitive peoples’. Szczecin, non-European cultures and Polish colonization of the Recovered Territories

After the Second World War about half of the 1500 non-European objects of culture belonging to Georg Buschan (1863–1942), a German physician, traveler, author of numerous ethnological publications, survived in Szczecin. Although the non-European objects were not exhibited or available to the general public for a long time, information about their presence reached the small community of Szczecin artists. Appreciating the importance of this collection, Marian Tomaszewski (1904–1968) spoke about it in the context of the compulsive socialist realism of the 1950’s : ‘[...] it is better to admire and imitate primitive but charming folk art, not to mention the art of primitive peoples, or better still, to follow Picasso or Matisse’. However, the Communist authorities had their own ideas on how to use the Buschan collection in their propaganda.