Feliks Topolski

Feliks Topolski (1907-1989) was a Polish-born British expressionist painter.

Felix Topolski was born August 14 1907. He studied in the Warsaw Academy of Art and trained as an artillery officer. Later he moved to work in Italy and France and eventually moved to UK in 1935 and founded a studio near Waterloo where there is still a free permanent exhibition which chronicles the twentieth century. He married twice, first to Marian Everall and then Caryl J. Stanley.

During the Second World War, Topolski became an official war artist and painted scenes of the Battle of Britain and other battlefields. After the war he made a celebrated painting about the first meeting of the United Nations. He gained British citizenship in 1947.

Topolski painted number of portraits of contemporaries, including the authors H.G. Wells, Graham Greene, John Mortimer and Evelyn Waugh, and politicians Harold Macmillan and Aneurin Bevan, He also painted a number of murals, contributed to BBC programs and designed theatrical sets.

Feliks Topolski died in London in August 24 1989 and is buried in Highgate Cemetery, London. His son, Daniel Topolski, was a notable rower who captained Oxford in the Boat Race.

External links

* [http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=2056&page=1&sole=y&collab=y&attr=y&sort=default&tabview=worklist Topolski's works at the Tate Gallery]