Marcin Rożek

Marcin Rożek (8 November 1885 – 19 May 1944) was a Polish sculptor and painter and co-founder and professor at the School of Decorative Arts in Poznań. Rożek is most closely associated with the region of Greater Poland and the city of Poznań, in particular, although he was a well-established and highly regarded artist throughout Poland during the 1920s and 1930s.

Imprisoned by the Nazis in 1941, he was transported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he died of exhaustion in 1944.

Early life and education Marcin Rożek was born in Kuschten (now, Kosieczyn) on 8 November 1885 as the eldest of seven siblings to Catholic parents Andrzej and Katarzyna Rożek (née Andres). His father was a railway worker who devoted his free time to teaching the children the Polish language and history, as the Province of Posen was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia at the time. When Rożek was 6-years-old, the family moved to Bentschen (now, Zbąszyń), where he began his formal education. After two years, the family made a permanent move to Wollstein (now, Wolsztyn) in 1893. In 1904, due to his family's poor financial situation, he was granted a scholarship by the Society of Scientific Aid for Poor Youth, which enabled him to study sculpture in Berlin at the Kunstgewerbeschule in preparation to enter the Prussian Academy of Arts. After a year at the academy, he transferred to the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, studying under Wilhelm von Rümann. After graduation in 1909, he received a request from the Poznań Cathedral to design a commemorative plaque in memory of Bishop Florian Stablewski. The completion of the plaque, and other small works, enabled Rożek to study in Paris for one year, where he was influenced by the works of Antoine Bourdelle.

Following the end of hostilities and the creation of the Second Polish Republic in 1919, Rożek, along with graphic artist Jan Jerzy Wroniecki and painter and graphic artist Wiktor Gosieniecki formed a commission whose aim was to establish a higher art school in the newly independent state. On 1 November 1919, the School of Decorative Arts, Poznań was established and Rożek became the head of the department of sculpture, but left after one year to devote his time to his own artistic endeavors. After leaving the School of Decorative Arts, he began to sculpt prolifically; creating a series of tondos for various churches, and two large works, Ewa and Ligia i Ursus. Smaller statues and busts of Fryderyk Chopin and Stanisław Moniuszko were added to Poznań parks the same year. The early to mid-1920s, were some of Rożek's most prolific and successful years as a sculptor. In 1925, he began work in the halls of the Cegielski factory in Poznań on the design of the Monument to Bolesław the Brave in Gniezno at the initiation of Bishop Antoni Laubitz.

In 1930, at the behest of the Silesian Parliament, he created busts of Silesian activists Karol Miarka, Józef Lompa, Paweł Stalmach and Józef Londzin. The windows of the studios overlooked the garden that reached the shore of Lake Wolsztyn. Along the path leading through the garden to the lake, Rożek placed busts of his favorite writers, musicians and philosophers, created by himself. In this new studio, he created the figure of fifteen Polish saints and blessed crowning the ceiling of Gniezno Cathedral and the bas-relief tympanum of Saint George and the Dragon above the entrance to the Church of St. George in Gniezno.

Rożek left his home and studio in Wolsztyn and went into hiding with the aid of friends in Poznań, Objezierze and Tarnowo Podgórne. In late 1939, he traveled in secret to Wolsztyn, where one of his students informed him that the Germans had ransacked his home while searching for him, smashing many of his sculptures and throwing some into the lake just beyond his garden. He was known to comfort inmates who were awaiting execution. Rożek died in Auschwitz of exhaustion on 10 April 1944, aged 58. He never married or had children. On 26 September 1939, the Monument to the Insurgents of the Greater Poland Uprising was one of two structures blown up by the Germans in Szamotuły, the other being the town's synagogue. During the demolition, Polish workers were able to save the two fingers of the sculpture in the benediction position, and they are currently housed at the Archdiocese Museum in Poznań.

Sculptor Jerzy Sobociński reconstructed Rożek's Monument to Bolesław the Brave from a prototype and the sculpture was unveiled on 9 May 1985 on Jan Łaski Street in Gniezno, where it had stood before its demolition in 1939.

Since 8 November 2017, the Primary School Marcin Rożek in Kosieczyn bears his name.

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