Łukasz Konarzewski

He comes from the Konarzewski family of artists, residing in Istebna, who have been professionally active in Silesia since the 1920s. He is the son of Ludwik Konarzewski-junior and Joanna Konarzewska. He studied in the Department of History of Art at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University of Warsaw (Warsaw Theological Academy at that time). In 1984 he defended his final M.A. thesis, under the supervision of the rev. prof. Janusz Pasierb and the assistant-professor Andrzej Olszewski, which dealt with Polish art of the first half of the 20th century.

Łukasz Konarzewski, born September 22, 1955 in Istebna, is a Polish historian of art, art restorer, a civil servant of both central and local governmental administration.

Since the late 1990s of the 20th century he has been working on identification, description, management, promotion and protection of culture and the cultural heritage in Cieszyn Silesia, which is situated on the border between Poland and the Czech Republic. He is the author of a few hundred studies and publications in the fields of art and culture of the 19th and the 20th centuries in the Upper Silesia. They concern particularly the protection of the cultural heritage, methodology and guidelines, history and resources of culture and art, as well as artistic biographies and bibliography of the history of art in Cieszyn Silesia.

In his public activity he deals with resources, culture management, popularizing culture, conservation, and also the shaping of the environment. In the years 1991-1999 he was a Municipal Restorer in Cieszyn. Thanks to his creation and application of a conservation method, which was precursory at that time and which enabled the linking of activities of various fields, such as conservation, sociology and social studies as well as planning, it was possible to recover and retain the historic and original character of Cieszyn, which also visibly influenced the quality of the public space. Thanks to this the town became an example to follow in the region, as well as beyond it, when it comes to new solutions in art conservation and architecture. In the area of scientific research, he is one of the discoverers of part of the mediaeval fortifications on Castle Hill in Cieszyn, including, especially, the cylindrical tower, the so-called Tower of Ultimate Defence from the 13th century. The discovery contributes significantly to the development of research into the history of architecture in Poland.

He was the initiator and the academic editor of the first monograph on Cieszyn Silesia with respect to the history of art. He is also the author of “The County programme for the protection of monuments…” for Cieszyn county (which was one of the first programs of this kind in Poland) and Vademecum of contemporary creators of culture and artistic groups in Cieszyn county. He was one of the originators of the idea to create the rev. Leopold Jan Szersznik Award, which is the highest distinction and promotion for people and institutions that create, propagate and protect the cultural heritage on the Polish side of Cieszyn Silesia, as well as Zaolzie (its western part that lies in the Czech Republic). Since 2015 he has been the chairman of the committee that grants the award.

⃰ Łukasz Konarzewski, “The influence of the civil service on the quality of space, using examples of conservation works in the 90s of the 20th century in Cieszyn” [in:] Ochrona Zabytków, no 2/2016 2(269), LXIX, Warszawa 2016. pages 31–54 ISSN 0029-8247;