The drawing of President Gabriel Narutowicz was made during the
preparations for Marlene Dumas’s solo exhibition at the Zachęta in 2012.
When the exhibition ended, it was donated to the Zachęta collection as the
artist’s gift. The fairly realistic image was inspired by a photograph of the
coffin with Narutowicz’s body lying in state at the Belweder Palace on
19 December 1922. Dumas’s piece refers to both the history of the Zachęta
and the history of Poland, evidencing the artist’s interests in politics and
references to available iconographic sources. Gabriel Narutowicz, Poland’s
first president, was shot in the Zachęta building by the painter Eligiusz
Niewiadomski on 16 December 1922, during the opening of the annual
Salon of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts.