Aleksander Jackowski (19 January 1920,

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

– 1 January 2017, Warsaw) was a Polish cultural anthropologist, ethnographer, art critic. Author of various works on folk, contemporary,

naïve art Naïve art is usually defined as visual art that is created by a person who lacks the formal education and training that a professional artist undergoes (in anatomy, art history, technique, perspective, ways of seeing). When this aesthetic is ...

and l’art brut.

Biography

He grew up in Warsaw, in a family of intellectuals. In 1940 he was sent by

Soviets The Soviet people () were the citizens and nationals of the Soviet Union. This demonym was presented in the ideology of the country as the "new historical unity of peoples of different nationalities" (). Nationality policy in the Soviet Union ...

from

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, where he first came in contact with the folk culture of the

Khanty The Khanty (), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (), are a Ugric Indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as " Yugra" in Russia, together with the Mansi. In the autonomous okrug, the K ...

. He worked as a lumberjack, bellman, tractor driver, stove fitter, turner and locksmith. His shattered ankle was fixed by a

shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

, who was hiding in the woods from the Soviets. He returned to Poland with the General Berling Army in 1943. He took part in the battles of

Puławy Puławy (, also written Pulawy) is a city in eastern Poland, in Lesser Poland's Lublin Voivodeship, at the confluence of the Vistula and Kurówka River, Kurówka Rivers. Puławy is the capital of Puławy County. The city's 2019 population was Cen ...

and Warsaw. He finished his military career as a major, as the Deputy Military Commander of Warsaw in May 1945. He studied sociology and attended art history lectures. Until 1948, he worked in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

, as the director of the Minister's Cabinet managing the Press and Information Department. In 1948, he became the deputy editor in chief of the weekly “Odrodzenie” (Renascence). From the end of 1949, he was the Deputy Director and Head of the Department of Folk and Naïve Art at the Art Institute in the

Polish Academy of Sciences The Polish Academy of Sciences (, PAN) is a Polish state-sponsored institution of higher learning. Headquartered in Warsaw, it is responsible for spearheading the development of science across the country by a society of distinguished scholars a ...

. At that time he started a big field project of collecting Polish Music and Verbal Folklores. In the years between 1952 and 1998 he was the editor in chief of the quarterly “Konteksty. Polska Sztuka Ludowa” (Contexts. Polish Folk Art). He managed the Department of Folk and Naïve Art until 1984. He is the author of more than 400 publications on folk art, contemporary art, art naïve and l’art brut. He was the longtime associate of the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

and a member of the Committee of Ethnological Sciences in Polish Academy of Sciences, Council of Culture Foundation, Council of the Centre for Contemporary Art and juror of the “Małe ojczyzny” (Small Homelands) competitions.

Published works

Books

* '' Sztuka ludu polskiego'' (1965) * ''Sztuka zwana naiwną'' (1995) * ''Obrazy ludowe'' (1998) * ''O rzeźbach i rzeźbiarzach'' (1997) * ''Cepelia. Tradycja i współczesność'' (1999) * ''Pejzaż frasobliwy. Kapliczki i krzyże przydrożnePolska sztuka ludowa'' (2002) * ''Świat Nikifora'' (2005)

Articles

* 1954 ''Z zagadnień historii i metodologii badań nad sztuką ludową'', „Materiały do Studiów i Dyskusji z Zakresu Teorii i Historii Sztuki, Krytyki Artystycznej oraz Badań nad Sztuką”, R. 5, nr 3-4. * 1958 ''Ignacy Kamiński, rzeźbiarz z Oraczewa'', PSL, R. 12, nr 4. * 1959 ''Sytuacja i perspektywy sztuki ludowej w Polsce'', PSL, R. 13, nr 4. * 1960 ''O motywach ludowych i ich adaptacji'', PSL, R. 14, nr 4. * 1964 ''Współczesna rzeźba ludowa'', PSL, R. 18, nr 1. * 1966 ''Kicz – sztuka jarmarczna – sztuka ludowa. Dyskusja'', PSL, R. 20, nr 3-4. * 1966 ''Odpust w Białymstoku 1965 r.'', PSL, R. 20, nr 3-4. * 1966 ''Kolorowe figurki z cukru'', PSL, R. 20, nr 3-4. * 1968 ''Pogranicze sztuki naiwnej i ludowej'', PSL, R. 22, nr 1-2. * 1974 ''Kopernik w ludowej rzeźbie'', PSL, R. 28, nr 1. * 1974 ''Sobota i inni'', PSL, R. 28, nr 2. * 1975 ''Sztuka ludowa, relikt czy wartość żywa?'', PSL, R. 29, nr 3. * 1976 ''Współczesna rzeźba zwana ludową'', PSL, R. 30, nr 3-4. * 1977 ''Współczesne malarstwo ludowe i jego pogranicza'', PSL, R. 31, nr 2, 3 i 4. * 1980 ''Pojęcie twórcy ludowego'', „Lud”, t. 64. * 1981 ''Pomniki ludu'', PSL, R. 35, nr 3-4. * 1981 ''Sztuka ludowa'', ''Etnografia Polski. Przemiany Kultury Ludowej'', t. 2, Wrocław-Warszawa-Kraków-Gdańsk-Łódź 1981. * 1983 ''Obrazy Rozalii Barańskiej-Dzięciołowskiej'', PSL, R. 37, nr 1-2. * 1991 ''Kultura ludowa – sztuka ludowa'', „Lud”, tom 74.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackowski, Aleksander 1920 births 2017 deaths Polish ethnographers Polish art critics Polish anthropologists Recipients of the Oskar Kolberg Prize People from Warsaw Recipients of the Medal of the 10th Anniversary of the People's Republic of Poland