Coalmine (Coalminers)

Jan Wydra was born in 1902 in Ciecierzyn, and lived only 35 years to the detriment of the artistic community. His short life was filled with passion for painting. In 1936, lying in a sanatorium with the hope of recovery, a year before his death, he wrote to his wife his reflections on the history and aesthetics of art. With limited access to information from the artistic world, he remained interested in the field to which he had dedicated his difficult life. In poverty and illness, he did not abandon his passion. From his letters emerges the profile of an artist whose devotion and passion survived difficult circumstances. This effort and toil can be seen in the drawing Kopalnia (Górnicy) [Mine (Miners)], which, although it is about physical work, is in a way a symbol of the artist's difficult life.

A pair of men pushing a cart with coal, factory buildings in the background, the legibility of the subject, all allow us to notice traces of socialist realism approaching Poland from the east. The subject matter of the work is presented in a realistic way. Wydra appears here as a precursor of socialist realism, present in Poland between 1949 and 1955, which, as can be seen in his correspondence with his wife, remained in the artist's interests beyond history and aesthetics:

I must study more serious works of aesthetics and art history; monographs and biographies - not only in the field of plastic arts, but also music and literature. The material is enormous, but fortunately not obligatory. My attitude to knowledge is very casual; it is not worth, I think, being a bookworm and pedant. Of course, I will not neglect the study of socialism and economics, as well as general history.

Klara Sadkowska