Some artists fade from history quietly; Stanislav Szukalski did not, and Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski exists because a handful of friends refused to let his story disappear with him.
What is Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski about?
Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski traces the remarkable arc of the pre-war Polish artist through the eyes of the American friends he made late in his life, the people who ended up preserving what remained of his work and testimony. Rather than reconstructing his career through archival narration alone, the documentary leans on firsthand memory — people who sat with Szukalski, listened to him, and understood that his story would vanish if nobody wrote it down. Glenn Bray and Robert Williams appear as key voices in that effort, figures from the American art and illustration world who recognized something in Szukalski worth rescuing from obscurity. The film moves between the scale of his ambition and the quieter, human details of an old man reflecting on a life that took him from a celebrated artistic career to years largely forgotten by the wider art world, before a small circle of admirers brought his name back into view.
About the cast
Stanislav Szukalski appears as himself, the artist at the center of the documentary, alongside Glenn Bray and Robert Williams, whose friendship with him in his later years forms the backbone of how his story gets told. Their presence gives the film a personal register rather than a purely academic one — this is testimony from people who knew him, not commentary from a distance.
Context & significance
Directed by Ireneusz Dobrowolski and released in 2018, Struggle is a Polish-American co-production, fitting for a subject whose life and reputation span both countries. Documentaries built around rediscovered or overlooked artists have become a reliable strand of nonfiction filmmaking, and this one benefits from a rare asset: direct access to people who knew its subject personally rather than relying solely on archives and secondhand accounts.
Watching Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski on Ktime
You can stream Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski on K-Time by creating a free account and logging in — the page itself is open to browse and read without one. K-Time is built with a Farsi-first interface for Persian-speaking audiences abroad, making international documentaries like this one easy to find alongside the rest of the catalogue. This title currently plays in its original language, without Persian dubbing or subtitles.