The Honor Roll for Veteran’s Day, November 11, is an enormous list of heroes, and none more deserving of accolades than Jan (or John) Henryk de Rosen (1891-1982), who was also a notable artist of religious murals and mosaics. He served with distinction in the First World and was a diplomat for Poland before moving to the United States in 1939. He became a research professor of liturgical art at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., (1939-1949) and also worked on large scale art commissions for churches and other institutions, most notably the Washington National Cathedral in the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, the Great Upper Church of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the lobby of the National Catholic Welfare Conference (NCWC), and above the High Altar at the Church of the Ascension and St. Agnes.

Jan (John) Henryk de Rosen was born in the Russian occupied Warsaw, Poland, to painter Jan Rosen and Wanda Hantke, both from Polish Jewish families who had converted to Protestantism in the nineteenth century. The elder Rosen worked as a painter at the court of the last two Russian Czars, Alexander III and Nicholas II, but his other work focused on Polish military history and was later used in school textbooks. Young Jan, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1903, went to live with his sisters, one a sculptor, in Paris, where he first wrote poetry before becoming a painter like his father. During World War I, he joined the French Army, fighting at the battles of Ypres and Somme. He promoted Polish forces in France known as the Blue Army, later served in the British Army, and after the war joined the re-constituted Army of newly independent Poland. His war service was honored with the British Military Medal, the Polish Virtuti Militari Cross and Cross of Valour as well as the French Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre. He also served as a translator at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

De Rosen studied painting in Warsaw and had his first major exhibition in 1921, while also working for the Polish Foreign Affairs Ministry. In 1925, he had another exhibition at Zacheta Gallery in Warsaw and was asked to paint the murals inside Lviv’s restored Armenian Cathedral, which he finished in 1929. De Rosen continued with his religious art in Poland and abroad, including pictures in the art museums of Lviv and Bydgoszcz and murals at the Kahlenberg’s Chapel of St Joseph near Vienna, Austria. At the request of Pius XI, he created two murals at the Papal Residence at Castel Gandolfo, the first painter since Michelangelo to work in the private Papal chapel (1). During the 1930s, he taught at the Lviv Politichnik University and came to the United States on the eve of World War II at the request of the Polish Ambassador to paint murals at the Polish embassy in Washington depicting celebrated King Jan III Sobieski at Vienna. He also completed decorations for the Polish Pavilion at the World Fair.

The outbreak of World War II, the German and Soviet occupation of Poland in 1939, and the postwar Communist takeover of Poland, not unnaturally prompted de Rosen to remain in America. In addition to being a professor at Catholic U, as mentioned above, he was also a member of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. He continued painting religious and other works of art throughout his later life while living in the United States. Two of his mosaics are among the largest in the world, one in the dome of the New Cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri, and the other ‘Christ in Majesty’  in the dome of Washington, D.C.’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, measuring over 3,600 square feet.  Other murals and mosaics created by de Rosen may be seen across the United States in Buffalo, Chicago, Memphis, Pittsburgh, and especially California in Anaheim, Hollywood, La Jolla, Monterey Park, Sacramento, and Vallejo.

De Rosen was honored by Catholic University in 1957 at Commencement with an honorary doctorate. In 1978, he was inducted into the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great and awarded the Commander’s Cross. He was a member of the Polish American Arts Association and of the Polish Veterans Association. He is quoted as saying “I did not want to be a painter but I could not help myself” and “Religious art requires a lot of knowledge”. He also added, “I paint my murals with wax colors dissolved in water. They do not fade, but, like most of us, mellow with time.” De Rosen, who lived in Arlington, died on August 22, 1982 at age 91 at Northern Virginia Doctors Hospital (2). While Special Collections at Catholic U do not hold De Rosen’s archival papers, we do have materials related to him as part of our other records, such as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (3).

For more information, please contact lib-archives@cua.edu.

Endnotes:

(1) It should be noted that this is NOT the Sistine Chapel.

(2) Information and quotes taken from his August 27, 1982 Washington Post Obituary.

(3) Most of the information in this blog post is taken from De Rosen’s CUA Reference File.

(4) Special thanks to Alexis Howlett and Nico Giambanco for their assistance.