Catalog of the exhibition "Arsenal 55.

Central Bureau of Art Exhibitions. National Exhibition of Young Visual Arts under the theme "Against War - Against Fascism". Painting, sculpture, graphics. Warsaw, VII-IX 1955. 8, pp. 47, [1], plates 24. booklet.
Covers slightly rubbed, inside good condition. Catalog of one of the most important exhibitions of Polish postwar contemporary art organized in the Warsaw Arsenal on the occasion of the 5th World Festival of Youth and Students. The exhibition - referred to as "Arsenal 55" - was a breakthrough event in the history of Polish postwar art; it was here that the first, moreover, successful attempt to break the binding canons of socialist realist art was made. Of a different opinion was J. Przyboś, writing in "Przegl. Kulturalny": "Provincialism, expressionism, shallow imitation of avant-garde, modern painting. This exhibition cannot be a breakthrough, as naive people proclaimed in its honor, because it did not show a single work of fully modern art" (quoted in M. Fik "Polish Culture after Yalta", London 1989, p. 218). The artists who debuted at the Arsenal became, in time, the most outstanding contemporary Polish painters.