Franciszek Duszeńko

Duszeńko was born at Gródek Jagielloński (now Horodok, Ukraine) in the Second Polish Republic eastern region of Kresy. He witnessed the ethnic cleansing accompanying the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, and the subsequent Operation Barbarossa by Nazi Germany in 1941. He worked in the Underground but at the same time began to study art in Lwów at the already renamed Kunstgewerbeschule (Arts Institute) in 1942 under Professor Marian Wnuk. He was arrested in 1944 and shipped to concentration camps.

Following World War II and the annexation of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union Duszeńko relocated to Gdańsk where he obtained a fine arts diploma in 1952 and began to teach at his alma mater in the same year. He became Dean at the Faculty of Sculpture in 1960–64. During the Solidarity years Duszeńko was appointed Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk in 1981, in office until 1987.{{cite web |url=http://www.asp.gda.pl/strona/kategoria/251/poczet_rektorow_asp_w_gdansku |title=Kadencja: 1981–1987, prof. Franciszek Duszeńko |publisher=Akademia Sztuk Pięknych w Gdańsku (Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk) |work=Poczet Rektorów ASP w Gdańsku |year=2013 |access-date=28 November 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203010819/http://www.asp.gda.pl/strona/kategoria/251/poczet_rektorow_asp_w_gdansku |archive-date=3 December 2013 |url-status=dead }} He served as Head of Sculpture and Drawing Department in 1987–96. After his tenure, at the request of the authorities of the Gdańsk Academy, he continued to guide graduating students in their creative work leading toward the final diploma, until 2001.

Duszeńko is the author of several iconic World War II monuments in Poland including the {{convert|8|m}} tall Memorial to Victims of the Treblinka extermination camp designed with architect Adam Haupt, and unveiled on site by the Marshal of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland in the presence of 30,000 guests who attended the ceremony in 1964 including Jewish survivors from Israel, France, Czechoslovakia and Poland.{{Citation|last1=Kopówka |first1=Edward |author-link1=Edward Kopówka |last2=Rytel-Andrianik |first2=Paweł |title=Treblinka II – Obóz zagłady |trans-title=Monograph, chapt. 3: Treblinka II Death Camp |language=Polish |url=http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |publisher=Drohiczyńskie Towarzystwo Naukowe [The Drohiczyn Scientific Society] |work=Dam im imię na wieki [I will give them an everlasting name. Isaiah 56:5] |year=2011 |access-date=9 September 2013 |isbn=978-83-7257-496-1 |format=PDF file, direct download 20.2 MB |page=122 in current document |quote=Translation: The official unveiling of the monument took place on 10 May 1964. At that time, the name of the Mausoleum of the Fight and Martyrdom was introduced. The event was attended by 30,000 people. Original in Polish: Oficjalne odsłonięcie pomnika odbyło się 10 maja 1964 r. Przyjęto wtedy nazwę tego miejsca – 'Mauzoleum Walki i Męczeństwa w Treblince'. W wydarzeniu tym uczestniczyło ok. 30 tys. osób. [...] Odsłonięcia dokonał wicemarszałek Sejmu PRL – Zenon Kliszko. Wśród zebranych byli więźniowie Treblinki II: Jankiel Wiernik z Izraela, Richard Glazar z Czechosłowacji, Berl Duszkiewicz z Francji i Zenon Gołaszewski z Polski. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010231757/http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |archive-date=10 October 2014 }} More than 800,000 Jews were murdered in the gas chambers of Treblinka during the Holocaust in Poland. The sculpture represents the trend toward large avant-garde forms introduced in the 1960s throughout Europe, with a granite tower cracked down the middle and capped by a mushroom-like block carved with abstract reliefs and Jewish symbols.{{cite journal |url=http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/histpublications/files/07917-2010marcuseahrforumholocaustmemorialsgenre.pdf |title=Holocaust Memorials: The Emergence of a Genre |journal=American Historical Review |date=Feb 2010 |access-date=23 October 2013 |author=Marcuse, Harold |pages=35–36 of current PDF document |format=PDF file, direct download 26.3 MB |quote=Beginning with the Buchenwald memorial and numerous designs for the Birkenau competition, and continuing with the Île de la Cité in Paris, Treblinka, and Yad Vashem near Jerusalem, such experiential spaces have become a hallmark of major Holocaust memorials.}} He is also the author of the Westerplatte Monument in Gdańsk (with architects Adam Haupt and Henryk Kitowski) built in 1964–66, as well as the "Polish Gunners" in Toruń and notable others.

His surviving wife, Urszula Ruhnke-Duszeńko, (1922-2014) was a painter and academic employed in 1952–71 at the Gdańsk Academy, initially at the painting atelier of Prof. Juliusz Studnicki, and then as Head of the Painting Studio at the Faculty of Interior Design. His son, Marcin Duszeńko (1958–2000) was also an artist and an adjunct at the Faculty of Painting.{{cite book |url=http://www.asp.gda.pl/Strona_archiwalna_Czerwiec2010/i/pliki-do-pobrania/60lat/ASP60str397-408.pdf |title=Franciszek Duszeńko; Marcin Duszeńko |publisher=Muzeum Narodowe w Gdańsku |work=Biogramy twórców |year=2005 |access-date=28 November 2013 |author=Elżbieta Skalska |page=3 in current document |isbn=83-88669-91-5 |format=PDF file, direct download 157 KB |archive-date=19 January 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190119121524/http://www.asp.gda.pl/Strona_archiwalna_Czerwiec2010/i/pliki-do-pobrania/60lat/ASP60str397-408.pdf |url-status=dead }} A big retrospective of Franciszek Duszeńko's work was organized in January 2013 at the Günter Grass Gallery in Gdańsk.{{cite web |url=http://www.dziennikbaltycki.pl/artykul/743811,franciszek-duszenko-i-jego-stoly-wystawa-w-gdanskiej-galerii-guntera-grassa,id,t.html?cookie=1 |title=Franciszek Duszeńko i jego stoły. Wystawa w Gdańskiej Galerii Güntera Grassa |publisher=Dziennik Baltycki.pl |date=22 January 2013 |access-date=28 November 2013 |author=Grażyna Antoniewicz |language=Polish |trans-title=Franciszek Duszeńko and his work tables, at Günter Grass Gallery}} Duszeńko was posthumously awarded the Medal of the City of Gdańsk in 2008. He died only months earlier, and was buried at the Srebrzysko Cemetery locally.{{cite web |url=http://www.gdansk.pl/bip/rada-miasta,721,4754.html |title=Laureaci medalu księcia Mściwoja II |trans-title=Recipients of the Count Mściwoj II Award |language=Polish |publisher=Rada Miasta |work=Odznaczenia Rady Miasta Gdańska |date=28 October 2013 |access-date=28 November 2013 |author=Urząd Miejski w Gdańsku |archive-date=2 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202235619/http://www.gdansk.pl/bip/rada-miasta,721,4754.html |url-status=dead }}

File:Westerplatte 2846.JPG|Westerplatte Monument designed by Duczeńko in collaboration with Henryk Kitowski and Adam Haupt

File:Treblinka, Obóz Zagłady Treblinka II - fotopolska.eu (331400).jpg|The Treblinka memorial by Franciszek Duszeńko (1958–64){{cite book |url=http://www.sokolow.4web.pl/treblinka.htm |title=Treblinka II |publisher=Sokołowskie Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne |work=Nadbużańskim Szlakiem. Od Korczewa do Treblinki |year=2013 |access-date=28 November 2013 |author=Władysław Piecyk, Wanda Wierzchowska (eds) |isbn=978-83-906213-1-9}}

File:Pomnik Artylerii Polskiej w Toruniu 2.jpg|Memorial to the World War II "Polish Gunners" in Toruń

• Grunwald Monument
• Warsaw Uprising Monument

{{Commons category|Franciszek Duszeńko}}

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Category:Artists from Lviv

Category:Home Army members

Category:Gross-Rosen concentration camp survivors

Category:Sachsenhausen concentration camp survivors

Category:1925 births

Category:2008 deaths

Category:20th-century Polish sculptors

Category:Polish male sculptors

Category:20th-century Polish male artists

Category:Polish prisoners in Nazi concentration camps

Category:Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk