Patryk Pawel Tomaszewski
Adjunct Lecturer of Art
Music and Art
EMAIL: ptomaszewski@bmcc.cuny.edu
Office:
Office Hours: Wednesday, 2:30PM-3:30PM and by appointment (Spring 2024)
Phone:
Patryk P. Tomaszewski is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY, where he has taught since 2016, a Ph.D. Candidate in Art History at The Graduate Center, CUNY, and a Joan Tisch Teaching Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Tomaszewski’s interests encompass global realisms, both as a morphological and historical category, with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe and his doctoral dissertation examines Socialist Realist art in Poland under the Stalinist regime (1948-1956). By focusing on state-sponsored exhibitions of painting and sculpture, it analyzes the ways in which the cultural model of Socialist Realism—and the idealized version of reality it hoped to transmit—was received, institutionalized, and circulated in the post-war Polish society.
His writing has appeared in ArtMargins Online and the Museum of Modern Art’s post. notes on art in global context, among other publications. In 2020, he contributed an essay to the edited monographic volume on the Polish contemporary artist Xawery Wolski published by Skira. He curated Wojciech Fangor: The Early 1960s at Heather James Fine Art in 2018 and, more recently, Henryk Stazewski: Constructing Reliefs at the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York in 2021, for which he also served as the catalogue editor. Between 2017 and 2019, Mr. Tomaszewski was a Mellon Humanities Alliance Teaching Fellow at La Guardia Community College.
Expertise
Modern art in Europe and the United States; Socialist Realisms; Eastern European and Russian avant-gardes; art under authoritarian regimes; history of photography
Degrees
- M.Phil., Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York (2019)
- M.A., History of Art and Archaeology, The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (2016)
- B.A. (hons), Art History and German, Fordham University (2014)
Courses Taught
- Using a global approach, this introduction to art history includes the study of painting, sculpture, architecture and other media by surveying the Renaissance through the start of the twentieth century. The exploration of techniques, media, composition, and figure representation will provide an understanding of key concepts in the arts with additional focus on the historical and social context, which developed the meaning and changing styles in different cultures as well as the effects of cultural exchange through the arts.
- This introduction to Modern and Contemporary art history includes the study of painting, sculpture, architecture and other media by surveying the development and evolution of artistic styles using a global approach. Emphasis will be placed on groundbreaking artistic movements in context to their historical framework. Students will learn the importance of innovative practices, techniques and new avenues of exploration, by understanding the socio-political and cultural events that influenced artists to create groundbreaking works, which have led the way to Contemporary Art.
Research and Projects
I have recently published a chapter about Tadeusz Kantor’s 1980s painting practice and its reception beyond the Iron Curtain for an edited volume The 1982 Cultural Exchange Between Łódź and Los Angeles published by Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź. Published as an ebook in January 2024, it will be released in print later in the summer.
Publications
- “Representing Kantor: Monsieur On Sait Qui (1982) at Échange entre artistes 1931–1982, Pologne–USA” in Agnieszka Pindera and Paweł Polit, ed., The 1982 Cultural Exchange Between Łódź and Los Angeles (Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki, 2023)
- “Henryk Stażewski’s Path to Reliefs, 1950-1959,” Henryk Stażewski: Constructing Reliefs, exhibition catalogue, ed. Patryk P. Tomaszewski (New York: The Kosciuszko Foundation, 2021)
- “Chains and Crosses: The Political Iconography of Xawery Wolski’s Dark Series (1988-1992)” in Xawery Wolski, ed. Vincenza Russo (Milan: Skira Editore, 2020)
- “Female Artists and the Surrealist Body in East Central Europe after 1945,” The Female Gaze: Women Surrealists in the Americas and Europe, exhibition catalogue, ed. Gloria Orenstein (New York: Heather James Fine Art, 2019)
- “The Many Lives of El Lissitzky’s Proun 19D (1920 or 1921),” post. notes on art in global context (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2019)
Honors, Awards and Affiliations
- Joan Tisch Teaching Fellowship, Whitney Museum of American Art (2023-2026)
- Graduate Center B. Altman Foundation Dissertation Fellowship (2024-2025)
- Dissertation Research Grant, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (2023)
- Presidential Research Fellowship, The Graduate Center, CUNY (2020-2023)
- Kosciuszko Foundation Research Grant, The Kosciuszko Foundation, New York (2021)
- Rose Carol Washton Long Travel Grant, The Graduate Center, CUNY (2018)
