Long live 1, 2, 3 May

Zygmunt Skrętowicz (1902-1971) came from the Tarnopol Voivodeship, where he was a blacksmith and stonemason. In 1946, he came to Worowo in Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship, and since then, he earned his living as a farmer. In 1948, he started to sculpt. He quickly developed his style characterised by a sense of colour in his always polychrome sculptures and themes depicting everyday life's excellent and pleasant parts (rest, play).The sculpture '1,2,3 May' was created at the end of the artist's life. It is a static, wall-mounted and bas-relief composition, made in one piece of linden wood. The figures arranged in tiers are schematic silhouettes of men dressed in suits and holding red and white flags in their hands. The order of the march and the uniform colour scheme is disturbed by a colourful spot - a girl in a pink dress standing in the first row. However, the most interesting element is the inscription on a banner held by four women: 'Long Live the 1st,2nd,3rd of May in the People's Poland of Hearts, Thoughts, Actions'. On the one hand, it is an ideologically correct and frequent slogan in People's Poland (1945-1989); on the other hand, it is a clever 'smuggling' of the May 3rd holiday abolished in 1951, which was looked upon with hostility by the people's authorities. It was probably the artist's world-view manifesto.

Iwona Karwowska