A Small Form – the Big Vision. Medals by Wiktor Tołkin

Abstract

The article concerns the medals by Wiktor Tołkin, a sculptor known especially as the author of huge monuments commemorating the victims of the World War II, less known as a medallic artist. His first medallions the artist engraved during the War as a prisoner of Auschwitz-Birkenau – a Nazi concentration camp. Within 40 years the artist became the author of 32 medals of different types: anniversary medals, commemorating medals, and medals of honour. There are a few characteristic subject matters appearing on the medals' surfaces: a city view, a portrait, a human figure, graphic symbols, the Polish emblem… Medals by Wiktor Tołkin are quite far from avant-garde in form, however the artist combines synthesis and decorative forms at the same time. Sometimes he contrasts these both features in one medal: one on the averse and the other one on the reverse. The art of medals is an unappreciated domain by the art historians although it requires an enormous discipline and clarity of composition.