Painter and sculptor, born in Poland, who gained his diploma in painting and interior design at Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, 1933–9. Soon after, he was commissioned into the Polish Army to defend his country from the German invasion, in 1940 being taken by Russian forces and kept prisoner in Lubianka and Kozielsk. In 1941 he joined the Polish Army in the East in Russia, in 1942 being nominated as its director of art, later for the Second Polish Corps. When in 1942 Turkiewicz arrived in Persia, he took the opportunity of studying ancient cultures; in 1943 went to Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon; in 1944 lived in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv; then moved to Italy, acting as a war correspondent. After settling in Rome in 1945, Turkiewicz studied with Gino Severini and made the acquaintance of many artists there before moving on to Florence, Venice and Paris in 1946.