Leonard Brzeziński (1904–1984) – artysta haftu i kustosz pamięci

• Authors: Wittstock Hanna

Title variants

DE

Leonard Brzeziński (1904–1984) – Stickkünstler und Kustos der Erinnerung

EN

Leonard Brzeziński (1904–1984) – embroidery artist and custodian of remembrance

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Leonard Brzeziński was born on February 6, 1904 in Wiele, a village located in Zabory Land in the southern part of Kashubia. He was the son of Józef Brzeziński and Helena nee Landowska. He started his education in the Prussian primary school in his hometown. Then, he continued his education in Pelpin at a teacher preparation course, and then at the National Male Teacher Seminar (Państwowe Seminarium Nauczycielskie Męskie) in Kościerzyna. After finishing the seminar, he began working as a teacher at a village school in Brda. In 1928, he began studies at the National Higher Teacher Tranining Course (Państwowy Wyższy Kurs Nauczycielski) in Warsaw. After receiving his diploma, he accepted a position as a teacher in Grudziądz, where he worked until 1939. During the war, he was a member of the Home Army and the Pomeranian Griffin secret military organization. He hid in the woods near Wiele. Apart from the partisan activity, he was also involved in the art of embroidery at that time. After the war, he came back to Grudziądz to work as a teacher. In 1955, he went on a disability pension and returned to his hometown Wiele. From that moment, he devoted his time to collecting material culture relics of southern Kashubia and the art of embroidery. Leonard Brzeziński developed his own school of Kashubian embroidery, which was characterized by combining floral ornaments with geometrical elements, extending the color scheme beyond the traditional canon and the precision of creation. In 1959, he opened a private museum in the attic of his family town house, where he presented his embroidery works and historic exhibits from Zabory Land. In 1971, he moved his collection to the ground floor of the town house at Główna 4, where Kashubian Museum in Wiele (Muzeum Kaszubskie we Wielu) was created under the patronage of the Chojnice Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) branch, which operated there until 1983. Leonard Brzeziński for his museum activities was awarded by the Minister of Culture and Art of the People’s Republic of Poland (PRL) with the badge of Meritorious Activist of Culture (Odznaka Zasłużonego Działacza Kultury) and the Golden Badge for the care for monuments. He also received the Golden PTTK Badge and the Honorary Badge of Merit for the Gdańsk Land (Odznaka Honorowa Zasłużony Ziemi Gdańskiej). The Stolem Medal was awarded to him posthumously. Leonard Brzeziński died on April 8, 1984 in Wiele. He bequeathed his museum collection to the State Treasury, while his embroidery works were inherited by his nephew, Stefan Wittstock. After Brzeziński’s death, the exhibits from his museum were placed in a storage. In 1987, the Leonard Brzeziński Museum of the Zabory Land (Muzeum Ziemi Zaborskiej im. Leonarda Brzezińskiego) at the Gmina Cultural Center (Gminny Ośrodek Kultury) in Wiele was opened, where his collections were finally located. The collection of his embroidery has been available since 2018 in the J. Rydzykowski Historical and Ethnographic (Muzeum Historyczno-Etnograficznym im. J. Rydzykowskiego) in Chojnice.

• Publisher: Muzeum w Grudziądzu
• Journal: Rocznik Grudziądzki
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 29
• Pages: 295-313

Dates

published

2021

Contributors

author

Wittstock Hanna