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Post by pieter on Jun 28, 2024 14:11:03 GMT -7
GdańskGdańsk is a city on the north coast of Poland. For centuries, Germanic powers dominated the area, but the architecture and feel of the city are surprisingly Dutch. Gdańsk is famous for its shipbuilding and trade heritage, as well as its amber. The shipbuilding is all but gone, but the city remains vibrant and beautiful. For me looking at the video it feels like being in a Dutch town or city like Delft, Gouda, Alkmaar, Middelburg, Doordrecht, Doesburg, the small old town of Vlisisngen or a Flemish city like Gent, Brugge, Antwerp or Mechelen. It feels like walking trhough a Dutch or Belgian Flemish city watching the video.
Gdańsk is a city on the Baltic coast of northern Poland, and the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. With a population of 486,492, it is Poland's sixth-largest city and principal seaport. Gdańsk lies at the mouth of the Motława River and is situated at the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay, close to the city of Gdynia and resort town of Sopot; these form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (Trójmiasto), with a population of approximately 1.5 million.
The city has a complex history, having had periods of Polish, German and self rule. An important shipbuilding and trade port since the Middle Ages, in 1361 it became a member of the Hanseatic League which influenced its economic, demographic and urban landscape. It also served as Poland's principal seaport, and was the largest city of Poland in the 15th-17th centuries. In 1793, within the Partitions of Poland, the city became part of Prussia, and thus a part of the German Empire from 1871 after the unification of Germany. Following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles, it was a Free City under the protection of the League of Nations from 1920 to 1939. On 1 September 1939 it was the scene of the first clash of World War II at Westerplatte. The contemporary city was shaped by extensive border changes, expulsions and new settlement after 1945. In the 1980s, Gdańsk was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement, Solidarność, which helped precipitate the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.  In the 1980s, Gdańsk was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement, Solidarność, which helped precipitate the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact In the 1980s, Gdańsk was the birthplace of the Solidarity movement, Solidarność, which helped precipitate the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact Residents of Gdańsk gathered in front of the historic Gate No. 2 of the Gdańsk Shipyard. Lenin waiting for the announcement of the signing of the Gdańsk Agreements between the Polish Communist authorities and the representatives of the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union SolidarnośćKingdom of PolandIn 1224/25, merchants from Lübeck were invited as hospites (immigrants with specific privileges) but were soon (in 1238) forced to leave by Swietopelk II of the Samborides during a war between Swietopelk and the Teutonic Knights, during which Lübeck supported the latter. Migration of merchants to the town resumed in 1257. Significant German influence did not reappear until the 14th century, after the takeover of the city by the Teutonic Knights.
At latest in 1263 Pomerelian duke, Swietopelk II granted city rights under Lübeck law to the emerging market settlement. It was an autonomy charter similar to that of Lübeck, which was also the primary origin of many settlers. In a document of 1271 the Pomerelian duke Mestwin II addressed the Lübeck merchants settled in the city as his loyal citizens from Germany.
In 1300, the town had an estimated population of 2,000. While overall the town was far from an important trade centre at that time, it had some relevance in the trade with Eastern Europe. Low on funds, the Samborides lent the settlement to Brandenburg, although they planned to take the city back and give it to Poland. Poland threatened to intervene, and the Brandenburgians left the town. Subsequently, the city was taken by Danish princes in 1301.
n 1440, the city participated in the foundation of the Prussian Confederation which was an organisation opposed to the rule of the Teutonic Knights. The organisation in its complaint of 1453 mentioned repeated cases in which the Teutonic Knights imprisoned or murdered local patricians and mayors without a court verdict.[54] On the request of the organisation King Casimir IV of Poland reincorporated the territory to the Kingdom of Poland in 1454. This led to the Thirteen Years' War between Poland and the State of the Teutonic Order (1454–1466). Since 1454, the city was authorized by the King to mint Polish coins. The local mayor pledged allegiance to the King during the incorporation in March 1454 in Kraków, and the city again solemnly pledged allegiance to the King in June 1454 in Elbląg, recognizing the prior Teutonic annexation and rule as unlawful. On 25 May 1457 the city gained its rights as an autonomous city.
On 15 May 1457, Casimir IV of Poland granted the town the Great Privilege, after he had been invited by the town's council and had already stayed in town for five weeks. With the Great Privilege, the town was granted full autonomy and protection by the King of Poland. The privilege removed tariffs and taxes on trade within Poland, Lithuania, and Ruthenia (present day Belarus and Ukraine), and conferred on the town independent jurisdiction, legislation and administration of her territory, as well as the right to mint its own coin.[60] Furthermore, the privilege united Old Town, Osiek, and Main Town, and legalised the demolition of New Town, which had sided with the Teutonic Knights. By 1457, New Town was demolished completely, no buildings remained.
Gaining free and privileged access to Polish markets, the seaport prospered while simultaneously trading with the other Hanseatic cities. After the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) between Poland and the Teutonic Order the warfare ended permanently; Gdańsk became part of the Polish province of Royal Prussia, and later also of the Greater Poland Province. The city was visited by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1504 and 1526, and Narratio Prima, the first printed abstract of his heliocentric theory, was published there in 1540. After the Union of Lublin between Poland and Lithuania in 1569 the city continued to enjoy a large degree of internal autonomy (cf. Danzig law). Being the largest and one of the most influential cities of Poland, it enjoyed voting rights during the royal election period in Poland.
In the 1560s and 1570s, a large Dutch Mennonite community started growing in the city, gaining significant popularity. Mennonites are a group of Anabaptist Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The Radical Reformation represented a response to perceived corruption both in the Catholic Church and in the expanding Magisterial Protestant movement led by Martin Luther and many others. Beginning in Germany and Switzerland in the 16th century, the Radical Reformation gave birth to many radical Protestant groups throughout Europe.
The name Mennonites is derived from the Dutch cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland (Frisia), part of the Holy Roman Empire, present day Netherlands. Menno Simons became a prominent leader within the wider Anabaptist movement and was a contemporary of Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560). Through his writings about the Reformation Simons articulated and formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss Anabaptist founders as well as early teachings of the Mennonites founded on the belief in both the mission and ministry of Jesus. Formal Mennonite beliefs were codified in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith (1632), which affirmed "the baptism of believers only, the washing of the feet as a symbol of servanthood, church discipline, the shunning of the excommunicated, the non-swearing of oaths, marriage within the same church", nonresistance, and in general, more emphasis on "true Christianity" involving "being Christian and obeying Christ" as they interpret it from the Holy Bible.
The majority of the early Mennonite followers, rather than fighting, survived by fleeing to neighboring states where ruling families were tolerant of their belief in believer's baptism. Over the years, Mennonites have become known as one of the historic peace churches, due to their commitment to pacifism. Mennonites seek to emphasize the teachings of early Christianity in their beliefs, worship and lifestyle.
As said, the Dordrecht Confession of Faith was adopted on 21 April 1632, by Dutch Mennonites, by Alsatian Mennonites in 1660, and by North American Mennonites in 1725. It has been followed by many Mennonite groups over the centuries. With regard to salvation, Mennonites believe: When we hear the good news of the love of God, the Holy Spirit moves us to accept the gift of salvation. God brings us into right relationship without coercion. Our response includes yielding to God's grace, placing full trust in God alone, repenting of sin, turning from evil, joining the fellowship of the redeemed, and showing forth the obedience of faith in word and deed. When we who once were God's enemies are reconciled with God through Christ, we also experience reconciliation with others, especially within the church. In baptism we publicly testify to our salvation and pledge allegiance to the one true God and to the people of God, the church. As we experience grace and the new birth, we are adopted into the family of God and become more and more transformed into the image of Christ. We thus respond in faith to Christ and seek to walk faithfully in the way of Christ.When in the 16th century the Netherlands was destroyed by long years of ongoing wars with Spain, resulting in its ensuing economic collapse, and it’s expanding Protestantism suffered much from persecution of the Catholic Habsburgs, many Dutch people decided to leave their homeland and seek their fortune in faraway Poland. It was at that time a country of severe religious tolerance, and the owners of the flood-ridden areas of depression at the mouth of the Vistula River, called Żuławy (Werder), were waiting for them with open arms.
The Mennonites began to settle in what is now Poland (part of which was known as Prussia) in the mid-1500s. The group persecuted in Habsburg Netherlands found solace by the Vistula River and lived there until 1945. From the hopeful moment of their arrival in the 16th century until the sad time of departure at the end of WWII, they were an important part of the extremely difficult history of Poland which was once home to the biggest Mennonite population in the world. There are still a few remainders of their over 400 year existence in my country.
The Mennonites in Poland were descendants of Dutch immigrants. The settlers belonged to the Anabaptist movement, a radical Christian denomination with its roots in the Radical Reformation.
Unlike most Polish peasants they were free people, not serfs. Their relationship with landlords and bishops was based on long term contracts, usually signed by a group of several farmers staying in one area. With the right to lease the land, they also received privileges and obligations.
The Mennonites started settling on the bank of the Vistula River in the 16th century. Serfdom in my country became the dominant form of relationship between peasants and nobility a hundred years later, and it was a major feature of the economy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, although its origins can be traced back to the 12th century.
The first Mennonites who had arrived in Poland in the 16th century enjoyed religious tolerance and the Polish Golden Age. The phrase refers to the period from the late 15th century Jagiellon (Polish royal dynasty) Poland to the death of the last of the Jagiellons, the King Sigismund August in 1572. Some historians claim that the Golden Age lasted until the mid-17th century, when in 1648 the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was ravaged by the Khmelnytsky Uprising (a Cossack rebellion within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1648–1657, which led to the creation of a Cossack Hetmanate in Ukrainian lands) and Swedish invasion (the Swedish Deluge, invasion and occupation of the Commonwealth as a theatre of the Second Northern War 1655–1660; during the wars the Commonwealth lost approximately one third of its population as well as its status as a great power). But during its Golden Age, the Commonwealth became one of the largest kingdoms of Europe, stretching from modern-day Estonia, to Moldavia and Silesia. Its army was able to defend the realm against numerous Teutonic knights, Turkish, Swedish, Russian, and Tatar invasions. The country prospered thanks to its enormous grain, wood and salt exports.
In the 16th century, the area of the Commonwealth reached almost 1 million square km, with a population of 11 million. Its goods were transported to Western Europe via Baltic Sea ports of Gdańsk, Elbląg, Riga, Memel and Königsberg. The Commonwealth had several major cities, such as Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Lviv, Vilnius, Toruń and Kiev.
During the Golden Age the Commonwealth was regarded as one of the most powerful European states. It had a unique system of government, known as the Golden Liberty, in which all nobles (szlachta), regardless of economic status, were considered to have equal legal status and enjoyed extensive legal rights and privileges. One of its features was the Liberum veto, used for the first time in 1653.
The priviliges the Mennonites received on Polish lands led to the 16th century Vistula river delta housing rural Mennonite communities with large autonomy and well-developed self-government. The contracts they signed often mentioned that all members of the community had to fulfill their obligations and be responsible “one for all and all for one”. This is a good description of the customs which regulated life in Mennonites` villages in Poland.The enclave of real democracy in Crown of the Kingdom of Poland ruined by noble democracyThe rules obeyed in the settlements were written down in so-called “Willkürs”, lists of articles in the form of decorated, long documents which were kept in special communal chests for generations. The most important parts included regulations for self-government. At its head was a “Schultz” accompanied by councilors, all of them elected by local farmers. They held their office for one year and afterwards had to give a report to the community on the money they had spent and the activities they had undertaken.
All the neighbours paid a set fee to maintain the school, the teachers and the cemetery. Special attention was also paid to finding the best guardians for orphans. Those who neglected the most important obligations like paying tax, maintaining dikes, ditches, borders or fire prevention where severely punished by the community, with fines or even exile.The Mennonite techniques the Poles still useThe Mennonites are also acknowledged to have been a peaceful people who helped reclaim flood-prone land for agriculture that the Polish people still use. Having grown up in the Netherlands which literally means “lower countries”, influenced by its low land and flat geography, with only about 50% of its land exceeding one metre above sea level, they specialised in draining wetlands and swamps.
The reason was that Dutch immigrants – called Olendrzy or Olędrzy (Polish name for a Dutchman is Holender, plural – Holendrzy) – were for too many years used to solving their own water problems and they had great experience in development of the floodplains. The situation was favourable for both parties. At the depressive Żuławy immigrants from the Netherlands found a substitute for their homeland, and most importantly – freedom for practicing their religion.
On the other side local landowners and the authorities of Gdańsk were highly interested in the development of those fitting though fertile lands, especially that in western Europe there was high demand for Polish grain. And after two great floods of 1540 and 1543 these areas, already sparsely populated after Polish-Teutonic wars, were deserted. Those who remained were unable to cope with the water element.The Mennonite traces in Polish architectureThe Dutch Mennonites who lived in Poland differed from their neighbours not only in their religion and ethnic origin, but also in the way they constructed their buildings.
In the areas of Poland where the Mennonites used to live there are hundreds of buildings of which the architecture is based on patterns brought over by 16th century Dutch Mennonites. Most of them are old wooden farm houses found in Żuławy and in the low and central valley of the Vistula river. They are easily recognized: the dwelling and the barn are built in a long straight line, covered with one roof. They are very large, often exceeding 40 metres.
The Mennonites living in marshy areas built their houses on man-made hills called “terps”. The foundation was constructed from oak, the side walls were built with pine or other soft woods. A wooden construction provided protection from the elements and made it possible to take the house apart again, and move it to a new site. The attic was used to keep hay and crops, but during high floods it would also become a shelter for the family and their property, including cattle.
In the first two centuries of the Mennonites’ existence in Poland their farm houses were also used as houses of prayer. In the 16th and 17th century there were only a few Mennonite churches. By the 18th century Mennonite communities began to obtain permission to build their churches in other places in Żuławy and the Vistula River valley. These churches were made of wood, long rectangles with a simple high roof which made them look more like barns or granaries than places of worship.
From the mid-19th century onwards old churches in Żuławy were replaced with new constructions which quite often followed the architecture of churches built by other confessions. Built with brick in a neo-gothic or eclectic style, but still easy to recognize because they had no tower. However, the tradition of building wooden churches was preserved longer in areas up the Vistula river near Toruń, Płock and Warsaw, where new churches were constructed by the Mennonites in the late 19th century.
Overall, in Poland Mennonites built more than 40 churches in 30 locations and used most of them until the great migration in the last months of WWII. Today there are only 9 former Mennonite churches preserved, some of which are used as houses of worship by communities of other confessions.*** In Gdansk you can find traces of a Mennonite family of builders and artists – the Van den Blocke family. The Hansaic city of Gdańsk has been one of the richest and most beautiful cities in Northern Europe.
Willem was the son of the sculptor François van den Blocke, from Mechelen, Belgium (the Dutch speaking Flanders part of Belgium). Together with his brother Egidius, Willem moved to Gdańsk, which was looking for skilled craftsmen to translate the city’s pride into buildings. His most reputable commission was the Upper Gate, which was the start of the “Royal Route” through the inner city. He decorated it in stone, with coats of arms of Poland, Prussia and the city itself. In Oliva (the quarter of Gdańsk) he built the tomb of the Kos family. In Königsberg another one of his tombs can be found.
Willem’s son Abraham, architect and sculptor, cooperated in building the magnificent Artus Court and Neptune’s fountain, and built the marble tomb for the marquis Bonifacio in the Church of the Holy Trinity. He also designed the Golden House of Mayor Speimann and the Golden Gate. Willem’s other son Isaac painted pictures in St. Catherine’s Church and in the City Hall, and painted images on the altar and the pulpit in St. Mary’s Church. Together with their other brother Jacob, a carpenter, they also worked on the triumphal arch for King Sigismund.
Newcomers to Gdańsk, like Egidius’ and Willem’s sons Abraham, Jacob and David, gained citizenship by taking the citizen’s oath. This might have been the reason they converted to Lutheranism, since Mennonites are forbidden from taking oaths.
Presumably Willem and his son Isaac remained Mennonites. A sign of this is that Willem named his three sons after the patriarchs. His ‘Vermeulen-Bible’ also points to this, because from a textual perspective it matches the Mennonite ‘Biestkens-Bible’. The Gdańsk merchant Krijn Vermeulen had these Bibles printed for his Dutch speaking fellow-believers. On Willem’s copy his name and the date 1607 are printed.
Isaac requested to be able to practice his trade without having to take an oath. His Anabaptism can also be found in his painted ceiling in the City Hall. God isn’t portrayed in it, but merely indicated by an arm coming from heaven and the Tetragrammaton (in Hebrew and YHWH in Latin script, is the four-letter Biblical name of the God of Israel).Back to the Polish history of GdanskIn the 1575 election to the Polish throne, Danzig supported Maximilian II in his struggle against Stephen Báthory. It was the latter who eventually became monarch but the city, encouraged by the secret support of Denmark and Emperor Maximilian, shut its gates against Stephen. After the Siege of Danzig, lasting six months, the city's army of 5,000 mercenaries was utterly defeated in a field battle on 16 December 1577. However, since Stephen's armies were unable to take the city by force, a compromise was reached: Stephen Báthory confirmed the city's special status and her Danzig law privileges granted by earlier Polish kings. The city recognised him as ruler of Poland and paid the enormous sum of 200,000 guldens in gold as payoff ("apology").
During the Polish–Swedish War of 1626–1629, in 1627, the naval Battle of Oliwa was fought near the city, and it is one of the greatest victories in the history of the Polish Navy. During the Swedish invasion of Poland of 1655–1660, commonly known as the Deluge, the city was unsuccessfully besieged by Sweden. In 1660, the war was ended with the Treaty of Oliwa, signed in the present-day district of Oliwa. In 1677, a Polish-Swedish alliance was signed in the city.[66]
Around 1640, Johannes Hevelius established his astronomical observatory in the Old Town. Polish King John III Sobieski regularly visited Hevelius numerous times.
Beside a majority of German-speakers, whose elites sometimes distinguished their German dialect as Pomerelian,[69] the city was home to a large number of Polish-speaking Poles, Jewish Poles, Latvian-speaking Kursenieki, Flemings, and Dutch. In addition, a number of Scots took refuge or migrated to and received citizenship in the city, with first Scots arriving in 1380. During the Protestant Reformation, most German-speaking inhabitants adopted Lutheranism. Due to the special status of the city and significance within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the city inhabitants largely became bi-cultural sharing both Polish and German culture and were strongly attached to the traditions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Old Town in the 1770s with the Saint James church on the left and Saint Bartholomew church on the right
The city suffered a last great plague and a slow economic decline due to the wars of the 18th century. After peace was restored in 1721, Danzig experienced steady economic recovery. As a stronghold of Stanisław Leszczyński's supporters during the War of the Polish Succession, it was taken by the Russians after the Siege of Danzig in 1734. In the 1740s and 1750s Danzig was restored and Danzig port was again the most significant grain exporting in the Baltic region. The Danzig Research Society, which became defunct in 1936, was founded in 1743.Prussia and GermanyDanzig was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland. Both the Polish and the German-speaking population largely opposed the Prussian annexation and wished the city to remain part of Poland. The mayor of the city stepped down from his office due to the annexation. The notable city councilor Jan (Johann) Uphagen, historian and art collector, also resigned as a sign of protest against the annexation. His house exemplifies Baroque in Poland and is now a museum, known as Uphagen's House. An attempted student uprising against Prussia led by Gottfried Benjamin Bartholdi was crushed quickly by the authorities in 1797.
During the Napoleonic Wars, in 1807, the city was besieged and captured by a coalition of French, Polish, Italian, Saxon, and Baden forces. Afterwards, it was a free city from 1807 to 1814, when it was captured by combined Prussian-Russian forces.
In 1815, after France's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, it again became part of Prussia and became the capital of Regierungsbezirk Danzig within the province of West Prussia. Since the 1820s, the Wisłoujście Fortress served as a prison, mainly for Polish political prisoners, including resistance members, protesters, insurgents of the November and January uprisings and refugees from the Russian Partition of Poland fleeing conscription into the Russian Army, and insurgents of the November Uprising were also imprisoned in Biskupia Górka (Bischofsberg). In May–June 1832 and November 1833, more than 1,000 Polish insurgents departed partitioned Poland through the city's port, boarding ships bound for France, the United Kingdom and the United States (see Great Emigration).
The city's longest serving mayor was Robert von Blumenthal, who held office from 1841, through the revolutions of 1848, until 1863. With the unification of Germany in 1871 under Prussian hegemony, the city became part of the German Empire and remained so until 1919, after Germany's defeat in World War I. Starting from the 1850s, long-established Danzig families often felt marginalized by the new town elite originating from mainland Germany. This situation caused the Polish to allege that the Danzig people were oppressed by German rule and for this reason allegedly failed to articulate their natural desire for strong ties with Poland.Free City of Danzig and World War IIWhen Poland regained its independence after World War I with access to the sea as promised by the Allies on the basis of Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" (point 13 called for "an independent Polish state", "which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea"), the Poles hoped the city's harbour would also become part of Poland. However, in the end – since Germans formed a majority in the city, with Poles being a minority (in the 1923 census 7,896 people out of 335,921 gave Polish, Kashubian, or Masurian as their native language) – the city was not placed under Polish sovereignty. Instead, in accordance with the terms of the Versailles Treaty, it became the Free City of Danzig, an independent quasi-state under the auspices of the League of Nations with its external affairs largely under Polish control. Poland's rights also included free use of the harbour, a Polish post office, a Polish garrison in Westerplatte district, and customs union with Poland. The Free City had its own constitution, national anthem, parliament, and government (Senat). It issued its own stamps as well as its currency, the Danzig gulden (Gulden gdański, Danzig guilders). An aerial view of the historic city centre of Danzig (Gdańsk) around 1920With the growth of Nazism among Germans, anti-Polish sentiment increased and both Germanisation and segregation policies intensified, in the 1930s the rights of local Poles were commonly violated and limited by the local administration. Polish children were refused admission to public Polish-language schools, premises were not allowed to be rented to Polish schools and preschools. Due to such policies, only eight Polish-language public schools existed in the city, and Poles managed to organize seven more private Polish schools. A 1920s map of Gdańsk, in that time called Danzig A Polish Switchboard Operator in the Polish Post Office in GdańskIn the early 1930s, the local Nazi Party capitalised on pro-German sentiments and in 1933 garnered 50% of vote in the Dantzig parliament. Thereafter, the Nazis under Gauleiter Albert Forster achieved dominance in the city government, which was still nominally overseen by the League of Nations' High Commissioner. Albert Maria Forster (26 July 1902 – 28 February 1952) was a Nazi German politician, member of the SS and war criminal. Under his administration as the Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter of Danzig-West Prussia (the other German-annexed section of occupied Poland aside from the Warthegau) during the Second World War, the local non-German populations of Poles and Jews were classified as sub-human and subjected to extermination campaigns involving ethnic cleansing, mass murder, and in the case of some Poles with German ancestry, forceful Germanisation. Forster was directly responsible for the extermination of non-Germans and was a strong supporter of Polish genocide, which he had advocated before the war. Forster was tried, convicted and hanged in Warsaw for his crimes, after Germany was defeated. Gauleiter of Danzig SS-Obergruppenführer Albert Forster. Gauleiter of the Free City of Danzig from 15 October 1930 until 26 October 1939, and Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia from 26 October 1939 until 27 March 1945. Albert Forster was hanged on 28 February 1952 in the notorious Mokotów Prison in Warsaw.In 1937, Poles who sent their children to private Polish schools were required to transfer children to German schools, under threat of police intervention, and attacks were carried out on Polish schools and Polish youth. German militias carried out numerous beatings of Polish activists, scouts and even postal workers, as "punishment" for distributing the Polish press. German students attacked and expelled Polish students from the technical university. Dozens of Polish surnames were forcibly Germanized, while Polish symbols that reminded that for centuries Gdańsk was part of Poland were removed from the city's landmarks, such as the Artus Court and the Neptune's Fountain.
Arthur Greiser, a leading Nazi Party official in Danzig. He became the head of the Danzig Senate in 1934. After the beginning of World War II, he became administrator of the new province known as the Warthegau.
From 1937, the employment of Poles by German companies was prohibited, and already employed Poles were fired, the use of Polish in public places was banned and Poles were not allowed to enter several restaurants, in particular those owned by Germans. In 1939, before the German invasion of Poland and outbreak of World War II, local Polish railwaymen were victims of beatings, and after the invasion, they were also imprisoned and murdered in concentration camps.
The German government officially demanded the return of Danzig to Germany along with an extraterritorial (meaning under German jurisdiction) highway through the area of the Polish Corridor for land-based access from the rest of Germany. Hitler used the issue of the status of the city as a pretext for attacking Poland and in May 1939, during a high-level meeting of German military officials explained to them: "It is not Danzig that is at stake. For us it is a matter of expanding our Lebensraum in the east", adding that there will be no repeat of the Czech situation, and Germany will attack Poland at first opportunity, after isolating the country from its Western Allies.
After the German proposals to solve the three main issues peacefully were refused, German-Polish relations rapidly deteriorated. Germany attacked Poland on 1 September after having signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
The German attack began in Danzig, with a bombardment of Polish positions at Westerplatte by the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein, and the landing of German infantry on the peninsula. Outnumbered Polish defenders at Westerplatte resisted for seven days before running out of ammunition. Meanwhile, after a fierce day-long fight (1 September 1939), defenders of the Polish Post office were tried and executed then buried on the spot in the Danzig quarter of Zaspa in October 1939. In 1998 a German court overturned their conviction and sentence. The city was officially annexed by Nazi Germany and incorporated into the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia. The German battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein firing at the Polish Military Transit Depot during the Battle of Westerplatte in September 1939 Captured Polish defenders of the Polish Post Office in Danzig shortly before their trial and execution by the Wehrmacht.About 50 percent of members of the Jewish community had left the city within a year after a pogrom in October 1937. After the Kristallnacht riots in November 1938, the Jewish community decided to organize its emigration and in March 1939 a first transport to Palestine started. By September 1939 barely 1,700 mostly elderly Jews remained. In early 1941, just 600 Jews were still living in Danzig, most of whom were later murdered in the Holocaust. Out of the 2,938 Jewish community in the city, 1,227 were able to escape from the Nazis before the outbreak of war. Saluting Germans when Adolf Hitler enters Danzig on September 19, 1939 A young man looks at the antisemitic caricature in the display window of the Danzig office of "Der Stürmer." The poster reads: "The Jews are our misfortune." Danzig, 1939. Antisemitc graffiti in Danzig, late thirties when Danzig was German and a Nazified city where Poles and Jews were discriminated against and persecuted Antisemitc graffiti in Danzig, late thirties when Danzig was German.Nazi secret police had been observing Polish minority communities in the city since 1936, compiling information, which in 1939 served to prepare lists of Poles to be captured in Operation Tannenberg. On the first day of the war, approximately 1,500 ethnic Poles were arrested, some because of their participation in social and economic life, others because they were activists and members of various Polish organisations. On 2 September 1939, 150 of them were deported to the Sicherheitsdienst camp Stutthof some 50 km (30 mi) from Danzig, and murdered. Many Poles living in Danzig were deported to Stutthof or executed in the Piaśnica forest.
A Polish POW stands at attention in the Appellplatz at Stutthof, October 1939.
During the war, Germany operated a prison in the city, an Einsatzgruppen-operated penal camp, a camp for Romani people, two subcamps of the Stalag XX-B prisoner-of-war camp for Allied POWs, and several subcamps of the Stutthof concentration camp within the present-day city limits.
In 1941, Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet Union, eventually causing the fortunes of war to turn against Germany. As the Soviet Army advanced in 1944, German populations in Central and Eastern Europe took flight, resulting in the beginning of a great population shift. After the final Soviet offensives began in January 1945, hundreds of thousands of German refugees converged on Danzig, many of whom had fled on foot from East Prussia, some tried to escape through the city's port in a large-scale evacuation involving hundreds of German cargo and passenger ships. Some of the ships were sunk by the Soviets, including the Wilhelm Gustloff after an evacuation was attempted at neighbouring Gdynia. In the process, tens of thousands of refugees were killed.
The city also endured heavy Allied and Soviet air raids. Those who survived and could not escape had to face the Soviet Army, which captured the heavily damaged city on 30 March 1945, followed by large-scale rape and looting.
In line with the decisions made by the Allies at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the city became again part of Poland, although with a Soviet-installed communist regime, which stayed in power until the Fall of Communism in the 1980s. The remaining German residents of the city who had survived the war fled or were expelled to postwar Germany. The city was repopulated by ethnic Poles; up to 18 percent (1948) of them had been deported by the Soviets in two major waves from pre-war eastern Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union.Post World War II (1945-1989)In 1946, the communists executed 17-year-old Danuta Siedzikówna and 42-year-old Feliks Selmanowicz, known Polish resistance members, in the local prison.
The port of Gdańsk was one of the three Polish ports through which Greeks and Macedonians, refugees of the Greek Civil War, reached Poland. In 1949, four transports of Greek and Macedonian refugees arrived at the port of Gdańsk, from where they were transported to new homes in Poland.
Parts of the historic old city of Gdańsk, which had suffered large-scale destruction during the war, were rebuilt during the 1950s and 1960s. The reconstruction sought to dilute the "German character" of the city, and set it back to how it supposedly looked like before the annexation to Prussia in 1793. Nineteenth-century transformations were ignored as "ideologically malignant" by post-war administrations, or regarded as "Prussian barbarism" worthy of demolition, while Flemish/Dutch, Italian and French influences were emphasized in order to "neutralize" the German influx on the general outlook of the city.
Boosted by heavy investment in the development of its port and three major shipyards for Soviet ambitions in the Baltic region, Gdańsk became the major shipping and industrial centre of the People's Republic of Poland. In December 1970, Gdańsk was the scene of anti-regime demonstrations, which led to the downfall of Poland's communist leader Władysław Gomułka. During the demonstrations in Gdańsk and Gdynia, military as well as the police opened fire on the demonstrators causing several dozen deaths. Ten years later, in August 1980, Gdańsk Shipyard was the birthplace of the Solidarity trade union movement.
In September 1981, to deter Solidarity, Solidarność, the Soviet Union launched Exercise Zapad-81, the largest military exercise in history, during which amphibious landings were conducted near Gdańsk. Meanwhile, the Solidarity (Solidarność) held its first national congress in Hala Olivia, Gdańsk when more than 800 deputies participated. Its opposition to the Communist regime led to the end of Communist Party rule in 1989, and sparked a series of protests that overthrew the Communist regimes of the former Eastern Bloc.  43 years ago, on September 5, 1981, the 1st National Congress of Delegates of NSZZ "Solidarność" began in Gdańsk. Contemporary history (1990-present)Solidarity's leader, Lech Wałęsa, became President of Poland in 1990. In 2014 the European Solidarity Centre, a museum and library devoted to the history of the movement (Solidarność), opened in Gdańsk.
On 9 July 2001, the city was flooded, with 200 million zł being estimated in damage, 4 people killed, and 304 evacuated. As a result, the city has built 50 reservoirs, the number of which is rising.
Gdańsk native Donald Tusk is Prime Minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014 and again from 2023 to present and was President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019. In 2014, the remains of Danuta Siedzikówna and Feliks Selmanowicz were found at the local Garrison Cemetery, and then their state burial was held in Gdańsk in 2016, with the participation of thousands of people from all over Poland and the highest Polish authorities.
In January 2019, the Mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, was assassinated by a man who had just been released from prison for violent crimes. After stabbing the mayor in the abdomen near the heart, the man claimed that the mayor's political party had been responsible for imprisoning him. Though Adamowicz underwent a multi-hour surgery, he died the next day.
Paweł Bogdan Adamowicz (2 November 1965 – 14 January 2019) was a Polish politician and lawyer who served as the city mayor of Gdańsk from 1998 until his assassination in 2019. Adamowicz was one of the organizers of the 1988 Polish strikes before becoming the head of the strike committee. In 1990, he was elected to the Gdańsk City Council, chairing the body from 1994 during his second term and holding this post until 1998. He was elected Mayor of Gdańsk in 1998 and reelected in 2002 with 72% of the vote. In 2018, he was reelected as an independent. He was known as a liberal, progressive figure, speaking in support of LGBT rights, immigration, and of minority ethnic groups such as Kashubians. In November 2018, Adamowicz ran as an independent candidate for the office of Mayor of Gdańsk and was re-elected for a sixth term, being endorsed by the Civic Platform in the second round and remaining a vocal critic of the current ruling party in Poland, Law and Justice. He was due to serve until 2023. On 13 January 2019, Mayor Adamowicz was stabbed during a live charity event in Gdansk, the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity's 27th Grand Finale, by 27-year-old Stefan Wilmont, a former inmate diagnosed with schizophrenia. Adamowicz died the following day from his injuries, at the age of 53.
In October 2019, the City of Gdańsk was awarded the Princess of Asturias Award in the Concord category as a recognition of the fact that "the past and present in Gdańsk are sensitive to solidarity, the defense of freedom and human rights, as well as to the preservation of peace".
In a 2023 Report on the Quality of Life in European Cities compiled by the European Commission, Gdańsk was named as the fourth best city to live in Europe alongside Leipzig, Stockholm and Geneva
 Gdańsk today
Gdańsk today
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gda%C5%84sk
www.communications-unlimited.nl/the-immigrants-from-the-netherlands-in-poland/
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Post by pieter on Jul 1, 2024 14:16:47 GMT -7
Tamara de Lempicka Tamara Łempicka (16 May 1898 – 18 March 1980), better known as Tamara de Lempicka, was a Polish painter who spent her working life in France and the United States. She is best known for her polished Art Deco portraits of aristocrats and the wealthy, and for her highly stylized paintings of nudes.
Born in Warsaw, Gurwik-Górska briefly moved to Saint Petersburg where she married Tadeusz Łempicki, a prominent Polish lawyer, then travelled to Paris. She studied painting with Maurice Denis and André Lhote. Her style was a blend of late, refined cubism and the neoclassical style, particularly inspired by the work of Jean-Dominique Ingres. She was an active participant in the artistic and social life of Paris between the wars. In 1928 she became the mistress of Baron Raoul Kuffner, a wealthy art collector from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. After her divorce from Tadeusz Łempicki in 1931 and the death of Kuffner's wife in 1933, Łempicka married Kuffner in 1934, and thereafter she became known in the press as "The Baroness with a Brush".
Baron Raoul Kuffner, a wealthy art collector from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire
This work depicts Baron Raoul Kuffner, Tamara de Lempicka’s second husband. The couple met in Paris in 1928, and Lempicka painted her first portrait of Kuffner in the same year as well as an image of the baron’s mistress at the time, Nana de Herrera. They married in 1933 and moved to Los Angeles six years later, where they quickly became acknowledged leaders of social circles there. Tiring of the incessant pace of life in the city, Kuffner insisted that the couple move to New York in 1942
Following the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she and her husband moved to the United States and she painted celebrity portraits, as well as still lifes and, in the 1960s, some abstract paintings. Her work was out of fashion after World War II, but made a comeback in the late 1960s, with the rediscovery of Art Deco. She moved to Mexico in 1974, where she died in 1980. At her request, her ashes were scattered over the Popocatépetl volcano.  Salvador Dali and Lempicka, New York 1941 Photo by Nicholas W. Orloff/ Collection of Richard and Anne Paddy Early life
Warsaw and St. Petersburg (1898–1917)She was born on 16 May 1898, in Warsaw, then part of Congress Poland of the Russian Empire. Her father was Boris Gurwik-Górski, a Russian Jewish attorney for a French trading company, and her mother was Malwina Dekler, a Polish-Jewish socialite who had lived most of her life abroad and who met her husband at one of the European spas.
Tamara was raised in Warsaw by her mother and grandparents, Bernard and Klementyna Dekler, who were members of the social and cultural elite – they were friends with Ignacy Jan Paderewski and Artur Rubinstein. Their family grave is located in the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw. When Tamara was ten, her mother commissioned a pastel portrait of her by a prominent local artist. She detested posing and was dissatisfied with the finished work. She took the pastels, had her younger sister pose, and made her first portrait.
In 1911 her parents sent her to a boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland, but she was bored and she feigned illness to be permitted to leave the school. Instead, her grandmother took her on a tour of Italy, where she developed her interest in art. After her parents divorced in 1912, she chose to spend the summer with her wealthy Aunt Stefa in Saint Petersburg. There, in 1915, she met and fell in love with a prominent Polish lawyer, Tadeusz Łempicki (1888–1951). Her family offered him a large dowry, and they were married in 1916 in the chapel of the Knights of Malta in St. Petersburg.
The October Revolution in November 1917 (old time) overturned their comfortable life. In December 1917, Tadeusz Łempicki was arrested in the middle of the night by the Cheka, the secret police of the notorious "Iron Felix" Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877 – 1926). Tamara searched the prisons for him, and with the help of the Swedish consul, to whom she offered her favors, she secured his release. They traveled to Copenhagen then to London and finally to Paris, where Tamara's family had also found refuge.CareerParis (1918–1939)In Paris, the Łempickis lived for a while from the sale of family jewels. Tadeusz proved unwilling or unable to find suitable work. Their daughter, Maria Krystyna "Kizette", was born around 1919, adding to their financial needs. Lempicka decided to become a painter at her sister's suggestion, and studied both at the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts and Académie de la Grande Chaumière with Maurice Denis and then with André Lhote, who was to have a greater influence on her style. Her first paintings were still lifes and portraits of her daughter Kizette and her neighbor. She sold her first paintings through the Galerie Colette-Weil, which allowed her to exhibit at the Salon des indépendents, the Salon d'automne, and the Salon des moins de trente ans, for promising young painters. She exhibited at the Salon d'automne for the first time in 1922. During this period, she signed her paintings "Lempitzki"—the masculine form of her name.
Her breakthrough came in 1925, with the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which later gave its name to the style Art Deco. She exhibited her paintings in two of the major venues, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des femmes peintres. Her paintings were spotted by American journalists from Harper's Bazaar and other fashion magazines, and her name became known. In the same year, she had her first major exposition in Milan, Italy, organized for her by Count Emmanuele Castelbarco. For this show, Lempicka painted 28 new works in six months. During her Italian tour, she took a new lover, the Marquis Sommi Picenardi. She was also invited to meet the famous Italian poet and playwright Gabriele d'Annunzio. She visited him twice at his villa on Lake Garda, seeking to paint his portrait; he, in turn, was set on seduction. After her unsuccessful attempts to secure the commission, she went away angry, while d'Annunzio also remained unsatisfied.
In 1927, Lempicka won her first major award, the first prize at the Exposition Internationale des Beaux Arts in Bordeaux, France, for her portrait of Kizette on the Balcony. In 1929, another portrait of Kizette, at her First Communion, won a bronze medal at the international exposition in Poznań, Poland.
In 1928 she was divorced from Tadeusz Łempicki. That same year, she met Raoul Kuffner, a baron of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and an art collector. His title was not an ancient one; his family had been granted the title by the second-to-last Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz-Joseph I, because Kuffner's family had been the supplier of beef and beer to the imperial court. He owned properties of considerable size in eastern Europe. He commissioned her to paint his mistress, the Spanish dancer Nana de Herrera; after its completion, Lempicka and the baron began their relationship. She bought an apartment on rue Méchain in Paris and had it decorated by the modernist architect Robert Mallet-Stevens and her own sister Adrienne de Montaut. The furniture was by René Herbst. The austere, functional interiors appeared in decoration magazines.
In 1929, Lempicka painted one of her best-known works, Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti), for the cover of the German fashion magazine Die Dame. This showed her at the wheel of a Bugatti racing car wearing a leather helmet and gloves and wrapped in a gray scarf, a portrait of cold beauty, independence, wealth, and inaccessibility. In fact, she did not own a Bugatti automobile; her own car was a small yellow Renault, which was stolen one night when she and her friends were celebrating at La Rotonde in Montparnasse.
She traveled to the United States for the first time in 1929 to paint a portrait of the fiancée of the American oilman Rufus T. Bush and to arrange a show of her work at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. The exposition was a success, but the money she earned was lost when the bank she used collapsed following the stock market crash of 1929. The portrait of Joan Jeffery, fiancée of Rufus T. Bush, was completed but put into storage following the couple's divorce in 1932. It was sold by Christies in 2004 following the death of Joan (now Vanderpool). Lempicka's career reached a peak during the 1930s. She painted portraits of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Queen Elizabeth of Greece. Museums began to collect her works. In 1933, she traveled to Chicago where her pictures were shown alongside those of Georgia O'Keeffe, Santiago Martínez Delgado, and Willem de Kooning. Despite the Great Depression, she continued to receive commissions and showed her work at several Paris galleries.
The wife of Baron Kuffner died in 1933. De Lempicka married him on 3 February 1934 in Zurich. She was alarmed by the rise of the Nazis and persuaded her husband to sell most of his properties in Hungary and to move his fortune and his belongings to Switzerland.The United States and Mexico (1939–1980)In the winter of 1939, following the outbreak of World War II, Lempicka and her husband moved to the United States. They settled first in Los Angeles. The Paul Reinhard Gallery organized a show of her work, and they moved to Beverly Hills, settling into the former residence of the film director King Vidor. Shows of her work were organized at the Julian Levy Gallery in New York, the Courvoisier Galleries in San Francisco, and the Milwaukee Institute of Art, but her shows did not have the success she had hoped for. Her daughter Kizette was able to escape from occupied France via Lisbon and joined them in Los Angeles in 1941. Kizette married a Texas geologist, Harold Foxhall. In 1943, Baron Kuffner and de Lempicka relocated to New York City.
In the postwar years, she continued a frenetic social life, but she had fewer commissions for society portraits. Her art deco style looked anachronistic in the period of postwar modernism and abstract expressionism. She expanded her subject matter to include still lifes, and in 1960 she began to paint abstract works and to use a palette knife instead of her smooth earlier brushwork. She sometimes reworked earlier pieces in her new style. The crisp and direct Amethyste (1946) became the pink and fuzzy Girl with Guitar (1963). She had a show at the Ror Volmar Gallery in Paris in May and June 1961, but it did not revive her earlier success.
Baron Kuffner died of a heart attack in November 1961 on the ocean liner Liberté en route to New York. Following his death, Lempicka sold many of her possessions and made three around-the-world trips by ship. In 1963, Lempicka moved to Houston, Texas, to be with Kizette and her family and retired from her life as a professional artist. She continued to repaint her earlier works. She repainted her well-known Autoportrait (1929) twice between 1974 and 1979; Autoportrait II was sold, though she hung Autoportrait III in her retirement apartments, where it would remain until her death. The last work she painted was the fourth copy of her painting of St. Anthony.
In 1974, she decided to move to Cuernavaca, Mexico. After the death of her husband in 1979, Kizette moved to Cuernavaca to take care of de Lempicka, whose health was declining. De Lempicka died in her sleep on 18 March 1980. Following her wishes, her ashes were scattered over the volcano Popocatépetl.RediscoveryA resurgence of interest in Art Deco began in the late 1960s. A retrospective of her work was held at the Luxembourg Gallery in Paris in summer 1972, and received positive reviews. An extensive catalogue was published in Italy by editor Franco Maria Ricci in 1977. After her death, her early Art Deco paintings were being shown and purchased once again. A stage play, Tamara, was inspired by her meeting with Gabriele D'Annunzio and was first staged in Toronto; it then ran in Los Angeles for eleven years (1984–1995) at the Hollywood American Legion Post 43, making it the longest running play in Los Angeles, and some 240 actors were employed over the years. The play was also subsequently produced at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City. In 2005, the actress and artist Kara Wilson performed Deco Diva, a one-woman stage play based on Lempicka's life. Her life and her relationship with one of her models is fictionalized in Ellis Avery's novel The Last Nude, which won the American Library Association Stonewall Book Awards Barbara Gittings Literature Award for 2013.Style and subjectsLempicka's own description of her work: I was the first woman to make clear paintings, and that was the origin of my success ... Among a hundred canvases, mine were always recognizable. The galleries tended to show my pictures in the best rooms, because they attracted people. My work was clear and finished. I looked around me and could only see the total destruction of painting. The banality in which art had sunk gave me a feeling of disgust. I was searching for a craft that no longer existed; I worked quickly with a delicate brush. I was in search of technique, craft, simplicity and good taste. My goal: never copy. Create a new style, with luminous and brilliant colors, rediscover the elegance of my models.She was one of the best-known painters of the Art Deco style, a group which included Jean Dupas, Diego Rivera, Josep Maria Sert, Louis Lozowick, and Rockwell Kent, but unlike these artists, who often painted large murals with crowds of subjects, she focused almost exclusively on portraits.
Her first teacher at the Academie Ranson in Paris was Maurice Denis, who taught her according to his celebrated maxim: "Remember that a painting, before it is a war horse, a nude woman or some anecdote, is essentially a flat surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order." He was primarily a decorative artist, who taught her the traditional craftsmanship of painting.[40] Her other influential teacher was André Lhote, who taught her to follow a softer, more refined form of cubism that did not shock the viewer or look out of place in a luxurious living room. Her cubism was far from that of Pablo Picasso or Georges Braque; for her, Picasso "embodied the novelty of destruction". Lempicka combined this soft cubism with a neoclassical style, inspired largely by Ingres, particularly his famous Turkish Bath, with its exaggerated nudes crowding the canvas. Her painting La Belle Rafaëlla was especially influenced by Ingres. Lempicka's technique, following Ingres, was clean, precise, and elegant, but at the same time charged with sensuality and a suggestion of vice. The cubist elements of her paintings were usually in the background, behind the Ingresque figures. The smooth skin textures and equally smooth, luminous fabrics of the clothes were the dominant elements of her paintings.
Known especially for her portraits of wealthy aristocrats, she also painted highly stylized nudes. The nudes are usually female, whether depicted alone or in groups; Adam and Eve (1931) features one of her few male nudes. After the mid-1930s, when her Art Deco portraits had gone out of fashion and "a serious mystical crisis, combined with a deep depression during an economic recession, provoked a radical change in her work," she turned to painting more traditional subject matter in the same style. She painted a number of Madonnas and turbaned women inspired by Renaissance paintings, as well as mournful subjects such as The Mother Superior (1935), an image of a nun with a tear rolling down her cheek, and Escape (1940), which depicts refugees.[44] Of these, art historian Gilles Néret wrote, "The baroness's more 'virtuous' subjects are, it must be said, lacking in conviction when compared with the sophisticated and gallant works on which her former glory had been founded." Lempicka introduced elements of Surrealism in paintings such as Surrealist Hand (c. 1947) and in some of her still lifes, such as The Key (1946). Between 1953 and the early 1960s, Lempicka painted hard-edged abstractions that bear a stylistic similarity to the Purism of the 1920s.[46] Her last works, painted in warm tones with a palette knife, have usually been considered her least successful. Portrait of Tamara de Lempicka in 1939, "Tamara with veil"Personal lifeLempicka placed high value on working to produce her own fortune, famously saying, "There are no miracles, there is only what you make." She took this personal success and created a hedonistic lifestyle for herself, accompanied by intense love affairs within high society.
Her daughter Kizette rarely saw Lempicka, but was immortalized in her paintings. Lempicka painted her repeatedly, creating a striking portrait series: Kizette in Pink (1926), Kizette on the Balcony (1927), Kizette Sleeping (1934), Portrait of Baroness Kizette (1954–1955), among others. Some of Lempicka's other paintings depict women who resemble Kizette.
BisexualityLempicka was bisexual. Her affairs with both men and women were conducted in ways that were considered scandalous at the time. She often used formal and narrative elements in her portraits, and her nude studies included themes of desire and seduction. In the 1920s, she became closely associated with lesbian and bisexual women in writing and artistic circles, among them Violet Trefusis, Vita Sackville-West, and Colette. She also became involved with Suzy Solidor, a nightclub singer at the Boîte de Nuit, whose portrait she later painted. “Les Juennes Filles” (circa 1930), Tamara de LempickaCourtesy of David Benrimon Fine Art LLCLegacyAmerican singer Madonna is an admirer and collector of Lempicka's work. Madonna has featured Lempicka's work in her music videos for "Open Your Heart" (1987), "Express Yourself" (1989), "Vogue" (1990) and "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" (1998). She also used paintings by Lempicka on the sets of her 1987 Who's That Girl, 1990 Blond Ambition, and 2023 Celebration Tour world tours.
Other notable Lempicka collectors include actor Jack Nicholson and singer-actress Barbra Streisand.
Robert Dassanowsky's book Telegrams from the Metropole: Selected Poems 1980–1998 includes the poems "Tamara de Lempicka" and "La Donna d'Oro" dedicated to Kizette de Lempicka.
Lempicka's paintings are featured on the UK book covers of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
On 16 May 2018, in celebration of the 120th anniversary of her birth, Google made her the subject of the daily Google Doodle.
In July 2018, a biographical musical, Lempicka, premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The show later played at the La Jolla Playhouse in 2022 and on Broadway from April to May of 2024. The musical starred Eden Espinosa as Łempicka and was directed by Tony winner Rachel Chavkin. In April 2024, Espinosa was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal.
From September 2022 until March 2023, the National Museum in Kraków held a major exhibition of her works from museums and private collections in Europe and the USA entitled Łempicka.
In January 2023, Jeff Ruby Culinary Entertainment, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based, multistate restaurant company, named its first specialized event space The Lempicka to acknowledge the influence of her aesthetic on the interior design of its restaurants.[60] The center opened in June 2023.Art marketIn November 2019 the Lempicka painting La Tunique rose (1927) was sold at Sotheby's for $13.4 million. In February 2020, her painting Portrait of Marjorie Ferry (1932) set a record for a work by Lempicka by fetching £16.3 million ($21.2 million) at the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Christie's, London.
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