Józef Gazy

Józef Gazy (1910–1998) was a Polish artist, sculptor and restorer. Author of several monuments set in public space in various cities in Poland. In the 1960s he served as the leader of a team responsible for removal, maintenance, conservation and restoration of frescoes from the cathedral of Faras.

Józef Gazy was born in 1910. In 1937, he graduated from Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts.

In 1945 he joined the Office for the Reconstruction of the Capital (BOS). As part of his work there he was one of the creators of Warsaw's Monument to Brotherhood in Arms; he was also the sculptor to re-create the missing elements of the Sigismund's Column destroyed by the Germans during World War II. In the 1940s he was also one of the sculptors responsible for the decoration of the buildings of Marszałkowska Residential District in Warsaw. In 1951 he authored the Monument of Polish-Soviet Brotherhood of Arms in Legnica; during Stalinist period he created four additional monuments, similar to the one in Legnica, for various cities in Poland.

In 1962 Józef Gazy became a member of the Polish archaeological mission conducting the excavations at Faras. He led the field team of art restorers which dealt with securing frescoes discovered in the cathedral of Faras, preserving them, removing them from the walls and preparing them for transport. A big part of the work on the site he carried out personally, aided by Marta Kubiak. He remained part of the team until the very end of excavations, and left it only with the last group of Polish archaeologists, together with professor Michałowski, Stefan Jakobielski, Tadeusz Dzierżykray-Rogalski, Marek Marciniak, Antoni Ostrasz and photographer of the expedition, Andrzej Dziewanowski, soon before the Faras site was flooded by the waters of newly-constructed Lake Nasser. His skills and ingenuity allowed for more that 120 frescoes to be rescued from the site. While working in Egypt, Gazy also helped William Y. Adams with maintenance and restoration of frescoes at the nearby archaeological site of Meinarti.

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