The Polish Book Institute

A translation of Piotr Piotrowski’s book Znaczenia modernizmu. W stronę historii sztuki polskiej po 1945 roku ("Meanings of Modernism: Towards a History of Polish Art after 1945”) has been published in the Czech Republic. The publication of the book translated by Jan Jeništa was supported by the Book Institute as part of the ©POLAND Translation Programme.

The publication was published by the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Hradec Králové.

Piotrowski's book is the first problem-based presentation of Polish art of the second half of the 20^th century in Polish professional literature - ambitious, interdisciplinary, and taking into account the historical and political context. The book, which first came out in 1999, nearly a quarter of a century ago, was also a seminal publication and had a significant impact on thinking about Polish modernism. For Czechs, the book Významy modernismu. K historia polského umění po roce 1945 can certainly also serve as a problematic overview of the art of Polish modernism in the second half of the 20^th century.

Piotr Piotrowski, who died in 2015, was an eminent Polish art historian, curator, and professor of the humanities. He wrote many books on contemporary art, among which Meanings of Modernism was one of the most significant. Piotrowski has been affiliated with the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań all his life and served as director of the National Museum in Warsaw from 2009 to 2010.