THE INFLUENCE OF BRITISH MODERNISM ON POLISH ART IN THE 1950S: NAVIGATING CREATIVITY IN A SOCIALIST REALIST ERA

This article examines the impact of British modernist art on Polish artistic practices during the 1950s, a period dominated by socialist realism as an offi cial, politically controlled doctrine enforcing representational art while rejecting Western infl uences. Despite Cold War ideological barriers, British modernism—marked by abstraction, individual expression, and freedom from political doctrine—off ered Polish artists an alternative model for creative autonomy. The study employs a qualitative, historical-analytical methodology, combining art-historical analysis, cultural and political contextualization, and comparative visual analysis of representative artworks. Primary sources include archival documents (British Council reports, Polish state records), period art criticism, and exhibition catalogues that trace cultural exchanges; secondary sources encompass scholarship on Cold War cultural diplomacy and modernist art. The article investigates key transmission channels such as British Council exhibitions, critical publications, personal correspondence, and artist exchanges that enabled exposure to avant-garde techniques, encouraged abstraction, and fostered a departure from state-sanctioned aesthetics. It also analyzes strategies of cultural negotiation that permitted these exchanges despite ideological constraints. By tracing the reception and reinterpretation of British modernism in Poland, the study demonstrates how transnational infl uences contributed to the development of a distinctive modernist aesthetic that signaled resistance, critical refl ection, and the pursuit of individual artistic voice under political pressures.