Eligiusz Niewiadomski

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Eligiusz Niewiadomski" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Eligiusz Niewiadomski
Executed
Conviction(s)	Murder
Criminal penalty	Death

Eligiusz Niewiadomski (1 December 1869 – 31 January 1923) was a Polish

, in his first week in office as president.

Life

Niewiadomski was born into a family of

, one of the best-known Polish artists of the age.

National Museum in Warsaw

After 1897, he taught drawing at the

Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw

. However, when the school was finally opened in 1903, Niewiadomski was not invited to teach there.

Politically, Niewiadomski was a strong supporter of

, for which he was excluded from the National League.

To make a living, Niewiadomski began teaching art classes at numerous schools and churches in Poland. He also made frescoes in Konin's St. Bartholomew's Church. However, his two-volume monograph On Mediaeval Art sold poorly, and Niewiadomski was on the verge of being forgotten by his contemporaries.

After the outbreak of World War I he remained in Warsaw, where he published brochures and manifestos describing his views on the role of art. He also continued teaching art history and artistic technique at various schools. On 1 March 1918 he was appointed director of painting and sculpture at the Regency Council's Ministry of Culture, a post that had previously been turned down by numerous artists.

After Poland regained independence, Niewiadomski joined the newly reborn country's Ministry of Culture. In 1920, during the

.

Demobilized in 1921, Niewiadomski returned to the Ministry of Culture and continued his work there as a clerk. However, on 8 November 1921, after Antoni Ponikowski's government refused to grant Niewiadomski's department a higher budget, he resigned his post. He then devoted himself to writing and prepared several monographs on 19th- and 20th-century Polish painting, and on the theory of art. He made his living illustrating books.

Assassin

On 9 December 1922

gathered 227 votes, yet the National Democrats decided to boycott the President and announced that he was elected by the "Reds, Jews, and Germans" rather than Poles. This started a period of civil unrest in Warsaw, where the supporters of nationalist ideas protested against the election of their president.

On 16 December 1922 the newly-elected president attended the opening of an art exhibition at the

. A few months after his death, a renowned psychiatrist Maurycy Urstein called Niewiadomski’s execution a judiciary homicide, as the perpetrator was mentally ill and clinically insane but the court disregarded the need to provide specialistic psychiatric expertise during court proceedings to establish that.

After his execution, Niewiadomski remained a controversial figure. His funeral was attended by 10,000 people.[1]

See also

• List of Poles

Notes

References

• ISBN 83-04-00008-3
  .