Two extraordinary artists are associated with Dąbrówek, who are considered to be in the trend called primitivism or naive art.
They were not always appreciated during their lifetime, but their works gained recognition over time.
Apart from the place, they are also connected by the moment of finding their talent, as they both started to create in their old age.
MINNA ENNULAT born 1885-1974. (1901–1985) The painter belongs to the trend known as primitivism or naive art.
The lost paradise of the Prussian housewife from the small village of Dombrowken
When she painted decorations to decorate her new home, she never imagined that her work would one day find its way to salons and art galleries around the world.
Biography
She was born in 1901 in Baltschdorf in Angerapp County in the former East Prussia. She worked as a housekeeper in large estates and castles, including the Palace in Dąbrówka, where her husband Gustav Ennulat was the guardian and manager of landed estates. In February 1945, she escaped from the burning house with her husband and two sons. During the evacuation, she saw neighbors and relatives drown next to her under the ice when a hail of bombs fell on them. Twenty years later, after years of hardship, she managed to move her family to her own small house in Hesse in the town of Hadamar and hang pictures she had painted on the walls. She died at the age of 84 in the town of Hadamar.
Creation
One of the art critics once called his paintings ‘Trips to Paradise’
East Prussian Minna Ennulat.
Minna Ennulat, one of the most important naive painters, did not mean any great, let alone international, career when she reached for a brush. She started painting late, at the age of 65. Her creative genius revealed itself quite accidentally, from decorating her own home in Hesse, where she ended up escaping from East Prussia.
She started decorating everyday objects.
Minna Ennulat: “When the house was ready, I had the idea of weaving table runners and embroidering table cloths. Then I painted the fabric for the lampshade. Then the walls were so empty and I painted pictures so that it wouldn’t be so empty and lonely eyes on the walls … “
Encouraged by the approval of the surroundings and wanting to fill the empty walls of the new house, she started to create her works. These were paintings depicting landscapes, genre scenes, buildings painted with imagination, which she remembered from her earlier life in Dąbrówka, the place of her husband’s birth. Among others, the following works were created: the Church in Rogalach, the palace in Bejnunach and Dąbrówka, and Trakehner horses, which were bred in the former regions of East Prussia. All surrounded
blooming gardens in a bright calm summer scenery. In this way, she moved the lost house to a new home, but also aroused the keen interest of experts with her unusual work. However, reflecting memories was not the only subject of her work. She also illustrated scenes from her current life, for example the picture – River Scene in Hamburg from 1977. The first exhibition of her works was organized in the first half of the seventies, and her fame has been gaining momentum ever since.
Her works, unusually colorful, naive fairy-tale scenes did not reveal the author’s traumatic experiences during the war. Looking at her paintings one can get the impression that they are pictures of a child living in the land of eternal happiness. As if she wanted to cover all the pain and evil with all the colors of the rainbow. Her presentation of the world was characterized by extraordinary detail. She tried to recreate the world she remembered down to the smallest detail. In her paintings, she most often depicted scenes and landscapes from the real world, although there were also exceptions, such as the work entitled Adam and Eve -1976 or even Bird’s Paradise -1973.
Minna Ennulat has gained international fame. She is considered one of the most important German / East Prussian creators of the naive art trend. Her works are in private collections as well as galleries and museums.
Sources
1. Hans Hubmann, Naive Maler, Garten der Traume (Wydanie Bruckmann
Munchien). – 1973
2. https://www.cajeth.de/2014/11/elke-weickelt-minna-ennulat-wege-aus-einer-
schoenen-welt/
3. http://www.webarchiv-server.de/pin/archiv98/372o98.htm
4. http://www.galerie-zimmer.de/mina-ennulat.html,
ALEKSANDER SŁOMIŃSKI (SŁOMA) born 1885-1974. A folk sculptor and painter included in the trend known as primitivism or naive art.
The artist who saved the church, although he sculpted little saints.
There is probably no more meritorious person for the preservation of the church in Dąbrówka than Aleksander Słomiński, who came to the village in 1948 from the village of Minkowce.
Biography
He was born on December 8, 1885 in Minkowce in the Sokólski poviat. Early orphaned by his father, he helped his mother maintain the family farm and looked after his younger siblings. Drafted into the tsarist army at the age of 21, he fought in the Asian territories of Russia. In 1910, he returned to the economy. During the war, the wounded man was captured for three years. After World War II, he settled with his family in Dąbrówka Nowa in the district of Węgorzewo. He worked in the State Farm as a blacksmith and carpenter. Even in retirement, he worked to repair agricultural equipment. He was a social worker. He was keenly interested in the problems of people and his village. He saved the historic church in Dąbrówka Nowa from destruction, causing it to be entered in the register of monuments and personally contributed to its reconstruction from his own resources and from the local community. Then he was his social guardian. He believed that there are important and more important things in life, therefore, although he was not particularly pious, in 1973 he funded electric organs for the church, using the money obtained from the sale of his sculptures – “because the church must have an organ”. He died on March 19, 1974. He was buried in his native Minkowce.
Creation
He started carving at the age of 86, in 1971. He made about three hundred and fifty painted wooden figures. He painted pictures on glass. He gained international fame. His works are in private and state collections. “Aleksander Słomiński created various” personalities “from the world of politics and others, which reflected his own philosophy, fantasies and his original and rich imagination. Each figure has its own world. These apparently dead figures live in the gestures of their hands, with their glass eyes “look alive” … Each figure is also named by the author, and the names are not accidental “[1]. The inspiration for creative work came from news from newspapers, radio, television and my own experiences from the past years and travels around the world. He wrote poorly, so he asked children from the local school to sign his works.
On the website: www.cyfrowewm.pl, we can admire the artist’s works in the form digitized.
Sources:
1. Grąziewicz-Chludzińska, Barbara: Wielki człowiek z małej wioski : w 125. rocznicę urodzin Aleksandra Słomińskiego / Barbara Grąziewicz-Chludzińska // „Gazeta Olsztyńska” (Wydanie Mazury). – 2010, nr 66, dod. „Węgorzewski Tydzień”, nr 11, s. 10.
2. Serbintowicz, Leonard: [Dorobek współcześnie tworzonej sztuki ludowej], Archiwum Centrum Edukacji i Inicjatyw Kulturalnych w Olsztynie, Sygn. 5/405
3. http://leksykonkultury.ceik.eu/index.php/Aleksander_S%C5%82omi%C5%84ski
4.https://www.cyfrowewm.pl/obiekty/partner/14/muzeum-kultury-ludowej-w-wegorzewie