Archiwum socrealizmu w Instytucie Sztuki PAN
The Socialist Realism Archive at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Summary/Abstract: Material comprising the discussed “socialist realism archive” is connected with the beginnings of the functioning of the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences – IS PAN (at the time: the State Institute of Art) – a central scientific-research unit in which the foundations of new socialist realistic works were to emerge and consolidate. Alongside the creation of a world outlook superstructure one of the most prominent tasks of the institution established in 1949 was supervision over exhibitions of socialist realism and their documentation. Photographs registering socialist realism belong to a large collection known conventionally as the “photothèque of the fine arts” and encompass almost 8 000 first inventory numbers. They thus constitute the actual core of the present-day expanded and multi-theme Collections of Photographs and Survey Drawings. The axis of this set is composed of photographic records of four Pan-Polish Fine Arts Exhibitions – OWP (1950, 1951, 1952, 1954) as well as other key expositions of the Stalinist period. This is a unique collection owing to its complexity since it contains almost everything that was on show at the time and not only selected examples – a rare case of a concrete art phenomenon possessing its own closed archive created for the needs of a single institution. The set is composed not only of recently digitalised photographs but also written sources kept in the Special Collections and the Documentation of Polish Contemporary Art IS PAN. They include, i.a. ideologically steered interviews with artists, stenographic records from an international discussion conference dealing with OWP, and rough typescripts analysing concrete works from the viewpoint of their concurrence with the doctrine. No other scientific or museum institution possesses a similar collection. Digitally copied and universally accessible it opens new paths of research into art dating from the first five years of the 1950s, the centralised exhibition policy of the period, and the works of numerous celebrated artists but also totally forgotten ones.

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