The artistic group known as the Wrocław School was formally founded in January 1962 by Eugeniusz Geppert and Hanna Krzetuska. It was active for 14 years. From the very beginning, the group’s members expressed a wide spectrum of artistic views and explorations. The Wrocław School (later known as the Wrocław Group) never issued a formal artistic manifesto. Its intention was to reflect the diversity of local artists and—echoing Tadeusz Kantor’s famous phrase about the need to “stick together”—to support the local art scene in organizing exhibitions, including those beyond Wrocław. At the time of the group’s founding, Geppert was already retired but still taught at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Wrocław. Hanna Krzetuska had long been an active advocate for strengthening the professional status of artists, regularly appealing to cultural institutions and authorities to increase the number of exhibitions and acquisitions of works by Wrocław-based artists.
The group emerged at a pivotal moment for Polish art. Although cultural decisions remained centralized, the “thaw” period had recently ended, briefly loosening restrictions on artistic practice and distancing itself from socialist realism. This period also saw the rebuilding of Poland’s art education system. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, the third cohort of postwar graduates was leaving the art academies. Museums and galleries were growing in number, and even private initiatives for exhibitions began to appear. In this wave of change—especially in university towns—artistic groups began to form. Prior to the Wrocław School, several collectives had already been active in the city, including Group X, Group 8, and the Form and Color Search Group. Yet the Wrocław School, founded by Krzetuska and Geppert, appears to have been the most significant initiative of its kind in the region. In fact, many members of this group had also been involved in other collectives.
It is worth noting that the Wrocław School was both interdisciplinary and intergenerational. The group included primarily artists born in the 1920s and 1930s who completed their studies after World War II. Most were among the first graduating classes of Wrocław’s art academy: Jerzy Boroń, Jerzy Cieślikowski, Jan Chwałczyk, Kazimierz Głaz, Wanda Gołkowska, Małgorzata Grabowska, Józef Hałas, Bogdan Hofman, Kondrat Jarodzki, Zdzisław Jurkiewicz, Feliks Kociankowski, Jan Kondratowicz, Regina Konieczna, Krzesława Maliszewska, Alfons Mazurkiewicz, Maria Michałowska, Kazimierz Nowacki, Marian Nowak, Zbigniew Paluszak, Roman Pawelski, Feliks Podsiadły, Leon Podsiadły, Marian Poźniak, Jerzy Rosołowicz, Anna Szpakowska-Kujawska, Janina Szczypczyńska, Władysław Tumkiewicz, Andrzej Will, Zygmunt Woźnowski, Kazimierz Wodawski, Stanisław Zima, and Janina Żamojtel.
The founders of the group differed significantly in age and experience from the rest. Eugeniusz Geppert was born in 1890, and Hanna Krzetuska in 1903. Both completed their art education before the war and were remembered by peers as living in a refined and somewhat elegant manner. As a result, an unspoken hierarchy formed around them within the group.
The group’s composition remained largely stable over its existence. However, a few less active members were removed from the roster in 1967, when the group changed its name from the Wrocław School to the Wrocław Group. While most members were painters, some practiced sculpture. In the early years, painters were especially influenced by Geppert and his preference for colorism, which dominated Wrocław painting in the postwar period. Over time, other styles emerged, including structuralism and conceptualism.
The Wrocław Group never adopted a specific artistic doctrine, which made it unusually open to diverse techniques and ways of approaching subject matter. This openness placed the group at the forefront of creative freedom in Poland. Moreover, it challenged the traditional notion of what an art group should be: rather than uniting around a single aesthetic or ideological focus, the Wrocław Group was about showcasing the full range of artistic exploration and the exhibition potential of the local creative community. This was especially innovative in a city rebuilding its art scene from scratch and just beginning to assert itself on the Polish contemporary art map.
Such ideological looseness might have seemed too fragile a foundation for a group of nearly 30 highly individual artists to endure. However, a solution was found—beyond the strong personalities of leaders like Krzetuska and Geppert. The group was the first in the city to adopt a formal structure modeled on official associations. It held general assemblies, elected a board and peer court, and collected annual membership dues. Meetings were used to plan exhibitions, which were the group’s primary form of activity. The first group exhibition took place in Sopot in 1962. Before the group dissolved in 1976, it held more than 20 exhibitions, mainly in Wrocław but also in other Polish cities. These shows were generally well received by both audiences and critics. The group even ran a small gallery in an elementary school on Grochowa Street.
Although only part of the group was actively involved in its operations, that core group’s dedication was enough to sustain its exhibition efforts and secure acquisitions of works for state collections. This likely contributed to the group’s longevity. It couldn’t fall apart over creative differences—those differences were, in fact, its foundation. Nor could it collapse for formal reasons. The group also exhibited internationally and had a reputation beyond Poland. The most probable reason for its dissolution was Eugeniusz Geppert’s declining health, which made it difficult for him to continue leading. Hanna Krzetuska, too, could no longer devote the same energy to its activities, and other members became increasingly absorbed in their professional and personal lives.
Group meetings were typically held at the successive apartments of Geppert and Krzetuska. After Geppert’s death in 1979, the tradition of informal gatherings continued, as former members kept visiting Krzetuska in her apartment on Ofiar Oświęcimskich Street.
