Henryk Guterman (1913-1938): A Talent Killed - Tenth Pavilion, Warsaw Citadel

30 October 2026 - 17 January 2027

The exhibition “Henryk Guterman (1913-1938) - zabity talent” (A Talent Killed) shows the work of a painter and draughtsman born in Częstochowa who was killed in the Spanish Civil War as a soldier of the Jarosław Dąbrowski Brigade. All the exhibits come from the collections of the Museum of Independence (Muzeum Niepodległości), which calls it the artist’s first solo exhibition. The exhibition runs 30 October 2026 - 17 January 2027 in the Gallery of Historical Painting (Galeria Malarstwa Historycznego) at the Museum of the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel.

The Museum of Independence on the exhibition (our translation):
The exhibition “Henryk Guterman (1913-1938) - zabity talent” (A Talent Killed) is the story of the remarkable talent of an artist whose life and work were tragically cut short at a young age. It was organised on the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the civil war in Spain, in which Guterman was killed as a soldier of the Jarosław Dąbrowski Brigade. It is an attempt to restore the memory of the output of an artist whose legacy was dispersed, and the complete set of works in the collections of the Museum of Independence is probably among the largest to survive.
Henryk, or more properly Henoch, Guterman - a Polish painter of Jewish roots, born in Częstochowa - made drawings that reveal not only great sensitivity but also remarkable technical skill. Many of them show scenes we still know today from the fronts of the wars being fought around the world and from the experiences of civilians in countries engulfed by conflict. This is precisely what makes these works timeless - they show the tragedy of war, which has lost none of its relevance. They are also of exceptional importance to the Museum of Independence, as they bear the first inventory numbers (1 to 68) in its collection of prints and drawings, symbolically opening the collection of works on paper, whose beginnings go back to the Museum of the History of the Polish Revolutionary Movement. Handed over to the museum in 1959, they became some of the first objects to build this collection and a testimony to the memory of an artist whose output was saved by his former comrades-in-arms.
The title of the exhibition, “zabity talent” (a talent killed), refers not only to the artist’s prematurely ended life but also to lost opportunities, an interrupted career and works that were never created. The presentation in the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel - a special place on the map of Warsaw’s historical memory - gives Guterman’s biography and works an additional, symbolic context. It is the first solo exhibition of the artist who, 90 years ago, set out to help Spain in its fight against the regime of General Franco.

What to expect

According to the museum, most of Guterman’s works were made on the Spanish front; they were published in the front newspapers of the International Brigades and used in the book “Karabin i serce” (The Rifle and the Heart). The drawings show both the daily life and experiences of people caught up in the conflict and the drama of war as seen by those who fought in it and by civilians.

The Museum of Independence states that it is the only museum in Poland to hold original works by the artist, and that the drawings, not shown to the public for many years, can be seen again after conservation. In its collection of prints and drawings they bear the first inventory numbers, 1 to 68; they came to the museum in 1959, and according to the museum the artist’s output was saved by his former comrades-in-arms. The curator of the exhibition, Małgorzata Karolina Piekarska, writes in the catalogue that only a few dozen of Guterman’s works survive.

The catalogue’s list of objects in the exhibition numbers them from 1 to 70. Objects worth looking out for (descriptions according to the museum’s catalogue):

“Sen więźnia” (The Prisoner’s Dream), no. 1 - the first item on the list, a work made in 1932 in the prison in Piotrków Trybunalski.
“W tunelu metra w Barcelonie” (In the Barcelona Metro Tunnel), no. 28 - a pencil drawing made in Spain in 1937, measuring 28.0 × 21.7 cm. The curator writes that most of Guterman’s sleeping figures are people sleeping in the Barcelona metro, where civilians took shelter during the bombing raids, as they do today during the war in Ukraine.
Stanisław Kiliszek after Henryk Guterman, “Antoni Kochanek”, no. 70 - a copy of a lost sculpture by Guterman.

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual Polish-Spanish catalogue, prepared for the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War; the museum calls it the first study of Guterman’s work on this scale. It contains an introduction by Katarzyna Legawiec, acting director of the Museum of Independence, and the curatorial text “Henryk Guterman - zabity talent” by Małgorzata Karolina Piekarska; the objects were prepared for the exhibition by Sylwia Popławska. The catalogue was published by Wydawnictwo Muzeum Niepodległości (ISBN 978-83-68378-47-4, print run of 200 copies) with funding from the Mazowieckie regional government under the targeted grant “Jedna Historia, różne opowieści” (One History, Different Stories). The museum makes the catalogue available as a PDF file (in Polish and Spanish).

Context

Henryk Guterman was born in Częstochowa as Henoch; the museum presents him as a Polish painter and draughtsman of Jewish origin. Sources give different years for his birth. The exhibition’s title and the catalogue’s list of objects date the artist 1913-1938, the curatorial text in the catalogue gives 29 April 1910, and the IPN publication it quotes, “Dąbrowszczacy i wojna domowa w Hiszpanii” (The Dąbrowski Volunteers and the Civil War in Spain), gives 1909. In a footnote the curator explains that the “Słownik biograficzny działaczy polskiego ruchu robotniczego” (Biographical Dictionary of Activists of the Polish Labour Movement) gives 1909, the “Słownik Artystów Polskich” (Dictionary of Polish Artists) gives 1913, the year used in the museum’s records until now, and most genealogical sources give 1910.

The sources agree that Guterman was killed in the Spanish Civil War as a soldier of the Jarosław Dąbrowski Brigade, but they describe his death differently. According to the museum’s post on the catalogue, he was killed during the bombing of Madrid. The IPN publication quoted in the curatorial text says that he fought at Huesca and Brunete and was killed at the front in 1938. A recollection quoted in the same text says that during the fighting for Lérida he volunteered for a night reconnaissance, left his trench in the morning and never came back, and that no trace of him was found.

Dąbrowszczacy (the Dąbrowski men) is the colloquial name for the XIII Jarosław Dąbrowski International Brigade: volunteer units formed mainly by Poles, including emigrants, which in 1936-1939 fought within the International Brigades on the Republican side against the Nationalists of General Francisco Franco. About 5,200 Poles fought for the Republic, and about 3,000 of them were killed in the war. The war ended in March 1939 with the Nationalists’ victory. The brigade’s patron, the 19th-century general Jarosław Dąbrowski, was commander-in-chief of the forces of the Paris Commune in 1871.

The Polish Wikipedia notes that the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) classed the Dąbrowski volunteers as an organisation fighting for “the building of a Stalinist state” and serving “the criminal communist ideology”, and that this decision met with resistance from part of society.

Tickets and time

Where: in the Gallery of Historical Painting at the Museum of the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel, a branch of the Museum of Independence. Directions are on the museum profile.
When: the exhibition runs 30 October 2026 - 17 January 2027; the branch’s November programme lists it among the exhibitions of the month. The opening took place on 30 October 2026 (see Updates).
How long: this is our editors’ estimate, not the museum’s figure: the catalogue’s list of objects numbers them from 1 to 70, so allow roughly three quarters of an hour for the exhibition. Those who want to know more about the artist can look through the PDF catalogue before the visit: it contains the curatorial text and the list of objects in the exhibition.
On the same visit: in November the exhibition “Na podbój kosmosu” (The Conquest of Space) is also on at the same museum, in the Poster Gallery, so both exhibitions can be seen on a single visit.
Who it’s for: people interested in the Polish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, in drawing from the front and in the fate of civilians in wartime, and those who want to see the first objects of the Museum of Independence’s collection of works on paper. Visitors who read Spanish will find the bilingual Polish-Spanish catalogue useful.
Who can skip it: anyone looking for a broad historical exhibition about the war in Spain: this is an exhibition of one artist’s work, according to the museum his first solo exhibition.

Updates

2026-10-28 - the museum published a post on the exhibition catalogue (source: catalogue post, in Polish).
2026-10-30 - the opening of the exhibition took place at the Museum of the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel; on behalf of Katarzyna Legawiec, acting director of the Museum of Independence, the guests were welcomed by the curator Małgorzata Karolina Piekarska, head of the Collections Department, and Jacek Konik (source: the museum’s report, in Polish).

Curator

Małgorzata Karolina Piekarska

Tickets and accessibility

Prices and opening hours: Museum of the Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel →

For international visitors:

The exhibition catalogue is bilingual, in Polish and Spanish

Exhibition details checked with the museum: 8 Nov 2026