Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Prime Minister of Poland

6 November 1860 Kuryłówka, Podolian Governorate, Russian Empire

29 June 1941(1941-06-29) (80) New York City, U.S.

18 January 1919 – 27 November 1919

Polish pianist and former prime minister Ignacy Jan Paderewski (Polish:  ; 18 November  1860 – 29 June 1941) was a Polish pianist and composer who became a spokesman for Polish independence. In 1919, he was the new nation's Prime Minister and foreign minister during which he signed the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. A favorite of concert audiences around the world, his musical fame opened access to diplomacy and the media, as possibly did his status as a freemason, and charitable work of his second wife, Helena Paderewska. During World War I, Paderewski advocated an independent Poland, including by touring the United States, where he met with President Woodrow Wilson, who came to support the creation of an independent Poland in his Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, which led to the Treaty of Versailles. Shortly after his resignations from office, Paderewski resumed his concert career to recoup his finances and rarely visited the politically-chaotic Poland thereafter, the last time being in 1924.