Jerzy Duda Gracz, MOTIVE OF POLAND - EYE 2, 1994

65.5 x 54.0cm - oil, fiberboard signed l.d.: DUDA GRACZ . 1698/94 .

On the reverse on the plate in marker p.g.: 6 V 94

On the reverse on the plate at the bottom:

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

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

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

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

On the panel, an inscription in marker p.g.: 6 V 94.

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;
- 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. 41, color ill., cat. no. 35;
- Prelude. Wroclaw collection (exhibition catalog), Agra-Art, Warsaw I 2023, p. 27, color ill., cat. no. 9;
- Polish Summer. Duda Gracz at Tichauer, Tichauer Art Gallery, Tychy VI 2023, p. 54, color ill.



The depiction of a man on a white horse appeared several times in the artist's series of paintings from the 1980s - Motives, Dances and Polish Dialogues and Aristocratic-Historical Paintings. In them he touched on socio-political issues, with his usual tendency to skillfully operate with symbol and bitter punchline. He usually cast a lancer in the role of the rider (Image 1260. Adoration of the little knight, 1988) or himself (Image 750. Polish motif with horse, 1983). The rider of the steed was interpreted as a symbol of Poland, the leader and bard of the nation, in whose behavior and psychophysical features a commentary on current reality was sought. In the presented work, already created in the reality of the Third Republic, the figure in the saddle is an obese, depressed man with a flabby body, dressed in a rumpled undershirt and a paper cap, reminiscent of the headgear from the famous 1982 self-portrait (Image 615. Self-portrait "Ora et colabora"). He lazily sweeps his gaze around the battlefield after the fought battle, which in reality is a littered country yard. The question of whether he will live up to expectations, "do the cleanup" and become a hero for the times remains unanswered. The return to the national theme in 1994 - a time when the painter's work was dominated by landscape - shows that he was never indifferent to Polish affairs. Tadeusz Nyczek spoke about this particular attitude in an interview: While the 1970s and 1980s were a kind of confrontation with the parochial reality of communist Poland, the later period of Jerzy's work was marked by a dialogue with regained freedom. He referred to the Polish settlement mythology, known for example from Wyspianski, Wesele, Wyzwolenie. He posed the question: what do we do with this freedom, are we able to use this historical opportunity at all? He was annoyed by the unnecessary celebration, typically Polish gestures, intrusive references to national symbolism, hussars, white horses, waving the banner and saber. Poland as a backyard cluttered with remnants of history and frosting of martyrdom. (quoted in T. Nyczek, Jerzy Duda Gracz. Painting and Graphics, Nowa Huta Cultural Center, Krakow 2019, pp. 20-21)



♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee 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)

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.