# Halina Korn

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{{Short description|British painter}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2013}}
'''Halina Korn''', actual name: '''Halina Julia Korngold''' (22 January 1902 in [Warsaw](/source/Warsaw) – 2 October 1978 in [London](/source/London)) was a Polish painter, sculptor and writer of Jewish origin. She was the wife of [Marek Żuławski](/source/Marek_%C5%BBu%C5%82awski).
thumb|250px|Halina Korn
thumb|Tomb of Halina Korn and husband Marek Żuławski at Kensal Green Cemetery, London

==Biography==
Her father, Julian, was a representative of foreign companies selling leather goods. Her mother, came from the [Petite bourgeoisie](/source/Petite_bourgeoisie) and was brought up in a small provincial town near [Lyon](/source/Lyon) in France.

Before the war, Korngold studied journalism in the Warsaw School of Political Sciences. At the same time she took singing lessons from Adela Comte-Wilgocka and the distinguished Stanisława Korwin-Szymanowska, sister of [Karol Szymanowski](/source/Karol_Szymanowski). In August 1939 she left for France, where she was overtaken by the outbreak of [World War II](/source/World_War_II). In Paris, she worked as a typist in the Ministry of Welfare, part of the [Polish government-in-exile](/source/Polish_government-in-exile), with which she moved to [Angers](/source/Angers). After the [Fall of France](/source/Fall_of_France) in May 1940, she came to [Great Britain](/source/Great_Britain) where she stayed until the end of her life. She started painting and sculpting in 1941 and signed her works as "Korn". In January 1948, she had her first solo exhibition entitled, "Paintings of London Life" in London's Mayor Gallery. In the fifties, she wrote exhibition reviews and texts about art for the [BBC Polish Section](/source/BBC_Polish_Section). In 1965, due to increasing mental illness - [bipolar disorder](/source/bipolar_disorder), she underwent [neuro-surgery](/source/neuro-surgery) which brought her creativity to a stop. She is the author of ''Wakacje kończą się we wrześniu'' (''Holidays end in September''), published in 1983, with a preface by [Stefan Themerson](/source/Stefan_Themerson).

It was everyday life, watched and caught in London streets, and people (she neither understood or liked abstraction) that became the subject of her work from the beginning. She painted the world around her: women in a mechanical laundry, a boy with a chunk of meat, mannequins in a shop window, coalmen, men and women on an escalator and people in a coffee shop.

She depicted scenes of parks, psychology clinics, funerals, circuses as well as strip-joints. Maternity was a common motif in her works, particularly in sculpture. Halina Korn's creativity, difficult to classify, was considered to be part of the [Naive Art](/source/Naive_Art) movement. Among others, Ignacy Witz, [Feliks Topolski](/source/Feliks_Topolski) and Aleksander Jackowski wrote about her in his encyclopaedic outline entitled ''Sztuka zwana naiwną'' (Art termed ''naive''). Quite a few critics emphasized her infallible flair for composition and form as well as her extraordinary sensitivity to colour.

She had a few solo exhibitions in London, Edinburgh and New York, including a series of exhibitions in Poland (Warsaw, Cracow, Gdynia, Katowice). In England, she exhibited  with the [London Group](/source/London_Group), in [Royal Academy](/source/Royal_Academy), Women's International Art Club. She was the member of [Artists' International Association](/source/Artists'_International_Association) (AIA) and a founding member of the Arts Society of Paddington. Halina Korn's works are in the [National Museum, Warsaw](/source/National_Museum%2C_Warsaw) and in [Poznań](/source/Pozna%C5%84), University Museum in [Toruń](/source/Toru%C5%84), London's [Ben Uri Gallery & Museum](/source/Ben_Uri_Gallery_%26_Museum) among others and in numerous private collections, including in ''The Anthony Petullo Collection of Self-Taught and Outsider Art''.<ref>[https://www.petulloartcollection.org/the_collection/about_the_artists/artist.cfm?a_id=32 Halina Korn entry on the Anthony Petullo website]</ref>

She was buried in London's [Kensal Green Cemetery](/source/Kensal_Green_Cemetery) on 6 October 1978.

==Selected exhibitions==

*'''1948''': Mayor Gallery, London
*'''1953''': Beaux Arts Gallery, London
*'''1960''': Gallery One, London
*'''1962''': Galerie Norval, New York
*'''1964''': Traverse Theatre Gallery, Edinburgh
*'''1965''': New Artists’ Forum, London
*'''1967''': The Fine Arts Association, Warsaw
*'''1981''': Camden Arts Centre, London

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==

*Martyn Goff, ''Marek Zulawski and Halina Korn'', "Studio" 1956 vol. 152, p.&nbsp;108-111.
*Feliks Topolski, ''Halinka'', "Wiadomości" 1979 nr 3, p.&nbsp;5.
*''Halina Korn-Żuławska'', [in:] Aleksander Jackowski, ''Sztuka zwana naiwną. Zarys encyklopedyczny twórczości w Polsce'', Warsaw 1995, p.&nbsp;86.
*Philip Vann, ''Face to Face: British Self-portraits in the Twentieth Century'', London 2004, p.&nbsp;69.
*Marek Żuławski, ''Studium do autoportretu'', Toruń 2009.

==External links==
*[https://www.muzeum.umk.pl/sztuka_polska/halina-korn Halina Korn’s official website]
*[https://www.petulloartcollection.org/the_collection/about_the_artists/artist.cfm?a_id=32 The Anthony Petullo Collection of Self-taught and Outsider Art]
*[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp128297/halina-korn?search=sas&sText=Halina+Korn National Portrait Gallery, London]
*[https://translatingmarek.com/romance-outbreak-world-war-ii-meeting-halina-korn/ Marek Żuławski, Romance at the outbreak of World War II: meeting Halina Korn]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Korn, Halina}}
Category:1902 births
Category:1978 deaths
Category:Polish sculptors
Category:20th-century Polish painters
Category:20th-century Polish women painters
Category:20th-century British painters
Category:British people of Polish-Jewish descent
Category:Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery
Category:20th-century British sculptors
Category:20th-century British women artists
Category:Polish emigrants to the United Kingdom
Category:People with bipolar disorder

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Halina Korn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halina_Korn) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halina_Korn?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.
