Henryk Waniek, SPRAWA NA WIECZNY ZAMK, 1988

46,2 x 71,0cm - oil, canvas signed on the reverse on canvas middleground: HENRYK WANIEK | APR. 1988 | SPRAWAWA NA WIECZNY ZAMK [in a frame] AN AFFAIR ON ABENDBURG, p.g.: export stamp, l.g.: sticker with No. 9005 | 710 x 462, on the g. strip of the loom in marker: 8


Provenance:

- Purchased in the 1990s from the State DESA Company in Warsaw for the Museum of European Art in Osaka, Japan.
- After the museum closed, private collection in Asia.



Seemingly classical, Henryk Wańek's vast landscapes contain rich symbolism. The artist thus gives expression to his fascination with the world - a theater of natural and artificial laws. Asked about his constant painterly attempts to interpret reality, during an interview with Elżbieta Dzikowska he emphasizes the necessity of making them: I can't say, however, that I know the world and know something certain about it. The constant surprise that it is for me puts its interpretation into question. (Elżbieta Dzikowska, Poles in the Art of the World. 50 outstanding contemporary artists / Polish Artists on the world arts scene. 50 outstanding contemporary artists, Rosikon press, Warsaw 2001)

* to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, a border tax of 8% VAT will be added (in accordance with §12 item 2 of the Rules)
♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, a fee will be added resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)

Henryk Waniek (born Oświęcim on March 4, 1942, lives in Warsaw) studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts in Katowice - a branch of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, and received his diploma in 1970. While still at university, he became associated with painters of a fantasy-magic orientation, Barbara and Henryk "Fantazos" Ziembicki. He then joined the Oneiron group (including Andrzej Urbanowicz, Urszula Broll, filmmaker Antoni Halor), which was perhaps the first in Poland in the counterculture generation to put forward a program of integrating art with Eastern philosophy and attempted to penetrate and artistically exploit so-called altered states of consciousness. Wańek's work is based on the impeccable technique of a painter-realist and the erudition of an explorer of the past, secret knowledge, symbolism of numbers, etc. The artist is also no stranger to the literary legacy, especially its fantasy and visionary themes. After all, this is only a framework for his purely artistic imagination and sensitivity with which he creates the imaginary spaces of his landscapes - panoramic and cosmic wildernesses and landscapes peculiarly "civilized", built-up, but never populated strictly speaking. In addition to painting, the artist is involved in theater and film set design, posters, as well as essayism and art criticism. He publishes in magazines and has also published collections of his texts in book editions.