oil on panel, 80 x 61 cm, signed l.d. "Duda Gracz 2000/96", framed: 98 x 78.5 cm, on the reverse the author's label
Work in author's frame. The work comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist's daughter Agata Duda-Gracz.
Work presented at the exhibition: Jerzy Duda-Gracz "Remanents", Museum of Fantastic Art, Warsaw, 2023 and reproduced in the catalog p. 44 ; reproduced in the catalog "Provincial and Municipal Paintings", p. 21.
JERZY DUDA-GRACZ - born in 1941 in Czestochowa, died in 2004 in Lagow. He was a painter, illustrator, stage designer and educator. Graduated from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. From 1976 to 82 he was a lecturer at this university and then a professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He also taught at the European Academy of Arts in Warsaw (1992-2001). What distinguishes his painting is not only his excellent technique, but also his attention to detail. Duda - Gracz's entire artistic output includes more than 180 solo exhibitions at home and abroad (including Berlin, London, Paris, Moscow, Rome, Vienna, Florence, Düsseldorf, Chicago, New Delhi, Munich, New York and others). He also participated in about 300 national exhibitions and international presentations of Polish art. Among others, he represented Poland at the XLI Art Biennale in Venice in 1984, at the XX and XXI World Art Fairs in Cologne in 1986 and 1987, and at EXPO '92 in Seville. His paintings are in the collections of the National Museums in Warsaw, Cracow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Gdansk, the Jagiellonian University Museum in Collegium Maius in Cracow, the Museum of the Earth of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, the art collection at Jasna Gora in Czestochowa and other district and city museums, and in private collections, including those of W. Ochman and W. Fibak; abroad - in the collections of the Uffizi in Florence, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Ghent City Museum, the "BAWAG" Foundation in Vienna and the Vatican Collection, as well as in galleries and collections in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Israel, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, Venezuela, the UK, Italy and Hungary.
www.jerzydudagracz.pl
"The series of provincial-commune paintings is the richest and most significant stage of the painting of Jerzy Duda Gracz. The works created over many years are a record of the artistic philosophy of one of the most original artists of Polish post-war art. One of the works in this series is the painting Lagow - a sinful memory from 1996. Image No. 2000 is symbolism, lyricism and subtlety, and the work brings together all the motifs of the artist's work - a very characteristic Polish landscape with staffage and masterfully painted semi-real figures of two girls.
The series under discussion is extremely varied in terms of themes. Among them are the issue of the existence of temptation, the concepts of sin and shame. The artist approaches the themes of intimacy and fragility with great tenderness and sensitivity. The poetics of these works stems from his fascination with the prose of Bruno Schulz and Emil Zegadłowicz. "Sinful Memory" is a painting that tells the story of budding sexuality and the shame that invariably accompanies it. It does not depict a realistic scene but a dream - a vision of inner desires, set in a Polish autumn landscape.
Agata Duda Gracz, an expert on the artist's work, comments on the work as follows: "My father loved Bane. He read them many times and quoted them many times. I think they helped him deal with his own uneasy adolescence. The work echoes the themes of Jurassic Paintings, and I think this is because of Dad's axes of association: Czestochowa - maturing - dying - temptations - shame - sin - repentance - church / ecclesiasticism. With him, all these phenomena were in one mental space. "Jerzy Duda-Gracz is an artist who needs no introduction to anyone. Present in the imagination and consciousness of the Polish people for many decades, the artist still has a wide circle of fans, His works are presented in leading cultural institutions in Poland. Currently, the series "Chopin - Duda Gracz" can be seen at the Silesian Museum in Katowice, and a permanent exhibition of the artist's works from his family collection is at the Nowa Huta Cultural Center in Cracow. The work "Sinful Recollection" is reproduced in the jubilee catalog "Provincial-Municipal Images" published on the occasion of the artist's 60th birthday in 2000. Last year the work was presented at the exhibition "Remanents" at the Warsaw Museum of Fantastic Art, and is also reproduced in the catalog to the exhibition."
Katarzyna Mierzwińska
