The Last Supper – 🏛️ Currently on Museum Exhibition

Historical & Educational Context „The Last Supper” (in Tykocin) is a pivotal, emotionally resonant work within the 22-canvas cycle Kaddish for Shtetl. The painting transports the viewer to pre-war Tykocin — one of Poland’s oldest and most significant centers of Jewish life, renowned for its 17th-century Great Synagogue and four centuries of uninterrupted spiritual and communal history.

The canvas freezes an exact historical threshold: Friday Shabbat evening, August 22, 1941. It was the very last Sabbath observed by the Jewish community of Tykocin. Just three days later, on August 25, 1941, the community was gathered at the town square and murdered in mass graves in the nearby Łopuchowo forest. Marek Hausmann consciously avoids sensationalized brutality, focusing instead on the spiritual gravity, human intimacy, and unbroken dignity of those final hours.

Visual Analysis & The Looming Matzevot The composition centers on the domestic Shabbat table. While the sacred ritual is observed — candles are lit and the table is set — the wide-open, sorrowful eyes of the couple betray an unspoken awareness of the impending catastrophe.

A decisive symbolic layer unfolds in the background, where the faint outlines of cemetery matzevot emerge from the shadows. These spectral gravestones encroach upon the domestic sphere, acting as a direct visual metaphor for the looming Shoah. The matzevot foreshadow the imminent transformation of the living town into a silent necropolis, casting a somber shadow over the fragile candlelight. The contrast between the warm flames and the cold cemetery silhouettes reinforces the tension between enduring spiritual dignity and inevitable loss.

Hausmann’s „The Last Supper” stands as a painted Kaddish — a visual memorial honoring those who preserved their humanity and faith until the very end.

Technical Specifications:

• Title: The Last Supper / Ostatnia wieczerza (The Last Supper in Tykocin)

• Series: Kaddish for Shtetl (from the 22-canvas cycle)

• Artist: Marek Hausmann

• Medium: Oil on canvas

• Dimensions: 60 × 80 cm (approx. 23.6 × 31.5 in)

• Year: 2026

• Signature: Signed by the artist

• Authenticity: Accompanied by a formal Certificate of Authenticity (COA) signed by the artist.