Young Poland: An Arts and Crafts Movement (1890-1918)
William Morris Gallery, London

This week I travelled to the north-easterly end of London’s Victoria line, and found myself in a Poland I hadn’t known existed. In fact the country “Young Poland” (to 30 January) depicts didn’t exist for many decades: invasions by Russia, Austria and Germany meant it was effectively erased as a nation throughout the nineteenth century. Poland was eventually restored at the end of the First World War; and as this many-layered exhibition reveals, it was the art created through its long absence that kept Polish culture not only alive, but blooming.

The heart of this artistic endeavour was Krakow, and the towering figure at its centre was Stanislaw Wyspianski (1869-1907) who, though he never met him, is presented in this show as the Polish William Morris (and hence the link to the gallery in London). Indeed there are clearly many similarities, from the democratic ethos of the movement to the focus on crafts to the art itself, which pulses with the same earthy colours and geometric patterns displayed in marquetry and on ceramics, floor coverings and textiles.