The Centennial of the Blok Group: Introduction

Authors

Joanna M. Sosnowska is a historian of art. She graduated from the University of Warsaw and received her doctoral degree in the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where she also gained her habilitation and in 2016 became a profesor ordinary. She lectured at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, the University of Warsaw and the University of Gdańsk. She instituted and for nine years headed the postgraduate course titled Art History. The Social and Political Perspective held at Collegium Civitas. For the last eight years she has been the Director of Postgraduate Studies at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She has published, among others, Polacy na Biennale Sztuki w Wenecji 1895–1999 (1999); Poza kanonem. Sztuka polskich artystek 1880–1939 (2003); Ukryte w obrazach (2012); Malarz Józef Chełmoński (2021). She edited volumes of studies on world exhibitions in Paris and New York and anthologies of women’s art criticism. She is the scientific editor of the “Dysertacje doktorskie Instytutu Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk” editorial series and member of the editorial board at “Rocznik Historii Sztuki”. In 2015 she received the silver Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture. Her research interests focus on the Polish art of the 19th, 20th and 21st century, art criticism, and methodology of art history. She has been the supervisor of twelve doctoral theses to their completion. She was a member of the Council of the National Museum in Cracow.

Authors

Przemysław Strożek PhD (habil.) is a research fellow at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a curator at the Archiv der Avantgarden in Dresden. He is the author of many exhibitions, books and academic texts on the history of the avant-garde, an editor of the “Journal of Avant-Garde Studies” (Brill) and the author of the book Picturing the Workers’ Olympics and the Spartakiads. Modernist and Avant­Garde Engagement with Sport in Central Europe and the USSR (Routledge, 2022). He was the co-curator (together with Sara Lagnaoui) of the exhibition Ahmed Cherkaoui in Warsaw. Polish­Moroccan artistic relations, 1955–1980 presented at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art (2020).

Statistics