Jerzy Duda Gracz, MEMORIES OF TRANSFORMING LADIES, 1994

91,2 x 83,0cm - oil, fiberboard signed l.g.: DUDA GRACZ . 1700/91 .

On the reverse, on the panel in marker, inscriptions: g.: UP, d.: DOWN ;

at top of sticker:

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

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

- exhibition sticker [print]: Silesian Museum in Katowice | Jerzy Duda Gracz - | Pro memoria - | Wroclaw collection | 19 Feb - 10 Apr 2005, museum stamp at left.

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



Image exhibited:
- Jerzy Duda Gracz - Pro memoria. Wroclaw Collection, Wroclaw City Museum 8 I - 13 II 2005, Silesian Museum in Katowice 19 II - 10 IV 2005, Copper Museum in Legnica 15 IV - 28 V 2005;
- Prelude. Wroclaw collection, Gallery of the Agra-Art Auction House, Warsaw 28 I - 3 III 2023;
- Polish Summer. Duda Gracz at Tichauer, Tichauer Art Gallery, Tychy 1 VII - 24 IX 2023.


Reproduced image:
- Jerzy Duda Gracz. Pro memoria. Wroclaw collection (exhibition cat.), Wroclaw City Museum, Wroclaw 2005, p. 43, color ill., cat. no. 37;
- Prelude. Wroclaw collection (exhibition catalog), Agra-Art, Warsaw I 2023, p. 28, color ill., cat. no. 10;
- Polish Summer. Duda Gracz at Tichauer, Tichauer Art Gallery, Tychy VI 2023, p. 56, color ill.



The women in Jerzy Duda Gracz's art, although they contradict the classical ideal of beauty, are active and aware of their assets as heroines. They are companions of fun and misery, co-participants in everyday dramas, and often - demonic nightmares and disturbing personifications of death. The collective portrait of the "ladies" to whom the artist dedicated the painting escapes the image of the "engaged" woman established in his work. The group nude, enclosed in an oval, is a unique, almost contemplative study of corporeality - an illustration of the fact of passing, carried out carefully and without a shadow of malice.
The nude models, inertly suspended in the background space, seem to be immersed in dreamy dreams. They are defenseless against the passage of time, which changes their bodies according to the rules governing the cycle of nature. Shown from youth to old age - they bud, blossom, bloom and die - like an ornamental bush branching between their stagnant silhouettes. The plant perfectly serves as a clear metaphor, while adding lightness and decorative character to the composition. Also resonating with the theme of the show are the warm colors and the soft line of the drawing, with the help of which the artist tenderly outlined all the imperfections of the female figures. The adult women are accompanied - shown somewhat off to the side - by a small, plump figure with masculine facial features. Probably this is a cryptoportrait of the artist himself, who, taking the form of a sleeping child, placed himself in an unusual role - a gentle and non-judgmental "voyeur." As a result, a work about women and for women was created, in which a universal message was captured in a dreamlike and extremely pleasing to the eye form.



♣ 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.