Jerzy Duda Gracz, GMINA ZAKOPANE - WITKACEMU, 1992

76.0 x 53.0cm - oil, panel GMINA ZAKOPANE - WITKACEMU. TRIO OF DOROTA'S SERVANT, TEXTURAL PASSION AND PIANO WITH YARN, 1992

Signed l.d.: DUDA GRACZ . 1493/92 .

On the reverse on panel:

- inscription in marker medium: 1493 | OLD | GOLD.

- Middle: author's sticker filled in by hand with details of the painting and signature;

- left: exhibition sticker [print]: WROCŁAW MUNICIPAL MUSEUM | Jerzy Duda Gracz - Pro memoria | Wrocław collection | 8 I - 13 II 2005, museum stamp below;

- right: exhibition sticker [print]: Legnica Copper Museum | Jerzy Duda Gracz | Pro Memoria | Wroclaw Collection 15.04. 2005 - 28.05. 2005, museum stamp below;

- below: exhibition sticker [print]: Silesian Museum in Katowice | Jerzy Duda Gracz - | Pro memoria - | Wroclaw Collection | 19.02. - 10.04.2005, museum stamp on left.

Image exhibited:

- Jerzy Duda Gracz - Pro memoria. Wrocław Collection, City Museum of Wrocław 8 I - 13 II 2005, Silesian Museum in Katowice 19 II - 10 IV 2005, Copper Museum in Legnica 15 IV - 28 V 2005;
- Polish Summer. Duda Gracz at Tichauer, Tichauer Art Gallery, Tychy 1 VII - 24 IX 2023.

Reproduced image:

- Duda Gracz, text by I. Kaminski, selection of illustrations, biography and bibliography compiled by A. Duda Gracz, published by Penta, Warsaw 1997, ch. Suspicious beauty of the province, p. 203, cat. item 46, color ill;
- Jerzy Duda Gracz. Pro memoria. Wrocław collection (exhibition catalog), City Museum of Wrocław, Wrocław 2005, p. 23, color illustrations, cat. item 15;
- Polish Summer. Duda Gracz at Tichauer, Tichauer Art Gallery, Tychy VI 2023, p. 36, color ill.



Jerzy Duda Gracz's cooperation with theater had its beginnings in the very early years, when, while studying at the Częstochowa High School of Fine Arts, he established contacts with theaters in community centers. Connections with the theater appeared even later, although they were not easy, as the artist himself said.

Duda Gracz's first serious stage design work was realized in 1981. Filomena Marturano at the Stanislaw Wyspianski Silesian Theater in Katowice, directed by Michal Pawlicki. The artist recalled this collaboration years later as follows: I cursed myself afterwards that never again! Of course, I did not keep my word. I was convinced by an unusual and beautiful personality - Andrzej Dziuk. At that time he was beginning his directing career at the Stary Theater and offered to do the set design for The Game of Everyone according to Iwaszkiewicz. I repeated that I would not do any costumes, that I did not care. And at that time he calmly explained to me the charms of his enterprise. Saying no - I scribbled something over there (quoted by Teresa Semik, Landscape of the Theater, "Dziennik Zachodni", No. 63, March 31, 1993).

After his stage design for The Game of Everyone (1984) at the Helena Modrzejewska Old Theater in Cracow, Duda Gracz also produced the stage setting for Bizet's Carmen at the Silesian Opera in Bytom (1988), directed by Maria Foltyn, but the place he had a special affection for was the Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Theater in Zakopane, created by Andrzej Dziuk in 1985. Great respect and admiration for Andrzej Dziuk's creative personality made Duda Gracz consider working with him an honor. He designed the set for the play Temptation (1993) based on Calderon, directed by Dziuk, and was close friends with the artists who made up the Witkacy Theater and often visited the place. A number of the artist's paintings are thematically related to the performances staged here, depicting actors and scenes from the plays. The painting on display refers to the play Katzenjammer based on Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz's Mother. The role of the Mother was played by Witkacy Theater star Dorota Ficoń, while the role of Dorota's maid was played by Lech Wolczyk portrayed by Duda Gracz.



♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee resulting from the right of the creator and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite)

Jerzy Duda Gracz (Częstochowa 1941 - Łagów 2004)- painter, illustrator, stage designer, educator. He received his diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow at the Department of Graphics in Katowice in 1968. In 1976-82 he was a lecturer at the academy, then a professor at the Silesian University in Katowice. He also taught at the European Academy of Arts in Warsaw (1992-2001).
His paintings are characterized by technical virtuosity and attention to detail. He practiced art in the broadly defined realist convention with dominant figure deformation and grotesque. He created a world of unmasking, using the language of journalism and allegory. He is the author of several major projects, including the "Transfiguration" plafond in the church in Toporovo (1995) and the "Golgotha of Jasna Gora" series in the Monastery of the Pauline Fathers in Czestochowa (2000/2001). The artist has had 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 participated in about 300 national exhibitions and international presentations of Polish art. He represented Poland, among others, 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. Jerzy Duda Player's 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 collections 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 the galleries and collections of 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.