A renowned engineer and politically independent, Narutowicz was the first elected head of state following Poland's regained sovereignty from partitioning powers.

In September 1919, Narutowicz was invited by the Polish authorities in rebuilding the nation's infrastructure after the devastation caused by World War I.

Following his successful conduct of the Polish delegation at the Genoa Conference, on 28 June 1922 he became the minister of foreign affairs in Artur Śliwiński’s cabinet.

After only five days in office, he was assassinated by a mentally disturbed Eligiusz Niewiadomski while viewing paintings at the Zachęta Art Gallery.

Gabriel Józef Narutowicz was born into a Polish-Lithuanian noble family in Telšiai, then part of the Russian Empire after the partitioning of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

An educated woman, intrigued by the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment, she had a great influence on the development of Gabriel and his siblings' world view.

A follower of the ideas of Józef Piłsudski, in September 1919 Narutowicz was invited by the Polish government to return to Poland to take part in the rebuilding of the nation's infrastructure.

He himself was a candidate of the Public Union on Eastern Borderlands (Państwowe Zjednoczenie na Kresach) but did not gain a seat in Parliament.

Although Piłsudski tried to discourage him from becoming a presidential candidate (he himself had originally wanted to decline the nomination, which the Polish People's Party "Wyzwolenie" had proposed), he eventually relented and accepted.

[14] According to the March Constitution of Poland, the president had to be chosen by the National Assembly, that is, the two houses of parliament (Pol: Zgromadzenie Narodowe i.e. the Sejm and the Senate).

The next to drop out were the two candidates most favored by representatives of the national minorities: namely, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and Stanisław Wojciechowski (the latter supported by some of the Left).

[18] During his oath of office ceremony on 11 December 1922, members of the National Democracy and others manifested their opposition against the president-elect with anti-government demonstrations in Warsaw.

Earlier on that day, opponents of his election attempted to prevent the president-elect from entering the Sejm by blocking the streets and throwing mud at his motorcade.

He had only become the candidate of the Polish Peasant Party "Wyzwolenie" by happenstance; he had also not expected to win the election (in its first-round Narutowicz gained just 62 votes whereas Count Zamoyski had 222).

[13] During his first days after his taking the oath of office, Gabriel Narutowicz met with the representatives of the Christian Democratic Party and Cardinal Aleksander Kakowski.

[22] Nearly 500,000 people attended Narutowicz's funeral was simultaneously a manifestation of peace which diminished the power of the far-right movement in the upcoming years.

The murder of Narutowicz was the main theme of the 1977 Polish feature film Death of a President (Pol: Śmierć prezydenta), directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz.