Aleksander Sochaczewski – malarz syberyjskiej katorgi

Gallery of paintings by Siberian painter Alexander Sochaczewski, showing the fate of convicts in Siberia.

A special section of the permanent exhibition at the Tenth Pavilion Museum is a gallery of paintings by Siberian painter Aleksander Sochaczewski, depicting the fate of convicts in Siberia. Aleksander Sochaczewski (proper name Lejb Sonder) was born on May 3, 1843 in the settlement of Iłów near Sochaczew to a Jewish family. Artistically talented, he studied painting at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts from 1858. Already during his studies he exhibited his works as one of the most talented students. At the beginning of the 1860s, during the revival of Polish independence activity, he, like many other students, joined the left wing of the underground - the Red camp. He took part in patriotic demonstrations and was also involved in the distribution of illegal publications. He was arrested in dramatic circumstances on September 1, 1862 and imprisoned in the 10th Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel. During a search of his apartment, among other things, weapons, molds for casting bullets, daggers used to execute traitors, many conspiratorial prints, secret press, etc. were found. As a result, on April 24, 1863, he was sentenced to death, later commuted by the governor of the Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duke Konstantin, to 20 years' imprisonment and sent in stages to Siberia that year. He served his sentence in the salt works at Usol near Irkutsk. After several years, under an amnesty, he had the rest of his sentence commuted to exile. He lived in Irkutsk for a while, then in Perm. After returning from Siberia in 1883, he emigrated to Munich, where many Polish painters lived and worked. He later settled in Brussels, and in 1901 settled permanently in Vienna. His twenty-year stay in Siberia left traces in his memory and psyche for the rest of his life. As a result, he created many works in exile, including on the basis of sketches he brought back from Siberia, in which he referred to his dramatic experiences in the East. His paintings depict the realities of the lives of Siberian exiles and convicts; they include many genre scenes illustrating the conditions of travel to Siberia, working conditions, daily life, escape scenes, etc. The artist also portrayed a number of authentic figures, mainly his fellow sufferers. Already during his stay in exile, the painter exhibited his works many times, including in Munich, London, Brussels, Budapest, Krakow and Rzeszow. In 1913, his paintings adorned the famous exhibition in Lviv, organized on the 50th anniversary of the January Uprising. Plagued by privation, a few years before his death (he died on June 15, 1923 in Austria) he donated his collection to the city of Lviv in exchange for a life annuity. Thanks to this, the one-of-a-kind "Siberian collection" did not disperse. It became the property of the Lviv National Museum. Later it shared the dramatic fate of Lviv, which was under Soviet occupation from September 1939, and then, from 1941, under Nazi occupation. During the latter, she was kept in Kiev. It returned to Poland in 1956, as part of the many polonica from the former Polish eastern borderlands transferred by the USSR authorities at the time. It then became the property of the Historical Museum of the City of Warsaw, and after the creation of the Museum of the 10th Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel in 1963, it ended up here as a permanent deposit. Currently 118 paintings and sketches for individual works by the artist are exhibited here.