Henryk Morel (1937–1968), one of the most talented sculptors of Poland’s young avant-garde, lost his life to the March 1968 antisemitic campaign.

Morel’s talent was recognized early. By the end of his twenties, he was receiving national recognition for innovative sculptures and multisensory installations. This wave of success could not sustain him through the antisemitic persecution. 

With the social values he believed in and relied on crashing down around him, Morel felt abandoned, besieged, threatened, and scared. He was haunted by dreams. His work, already preoccupied with destruction and decay, took what some critics see, in his late pen-and-ink works, as an even darker turn.

In the summer of 1968, Morel died by suicide.

(Source: Artur Tanikowski, Polish and Polish-Jewish Artists React to the Trauma of March ’68)