Zdzislaw Beksinski (1929-2005), Untitled
Black and white photograph on paper, 18 x 26 cm (light passe partout) / 32.5 x 42.5 cm (frame).
The photograph comes from the collection of Anna and Piotr Dmochowski.
Paper at bottom right slightly wavy.
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Zdzislaw Beksinski - painter, photographer, draughtsman and sculptor, born in 1929 in Sanok, Poland and died tragically in 2005 in Warsaw. In 1947, at his father's insistence, he entered the architecture department of the Cracow University of Technology (then part of the AGH University of Science and Technology). He graduated in 1952 and began working as a construction manager for a state construction company. Although he had been drawing since childhood, it wasn't until 1953 that he became seriously interested in photography, painting and sculpture, probably to escape the work he disliked.
Beksinski's artistic career began with photography, a field in which he quickly gained professional recognition and participated in many exhibitions at home and abroad. Even in these early works it is easy to see his reluctant attitude to reality; he tries to transform it according to his own vision. It was through this approach that he became fascinated with photography, in which he did not see objective reality, but was attracted to its 'chemical', artificial and 'processed' aspect, corresponding to his 'hatred of everything' that is 'nature'." Similarly, in his drawings from this period (1950s - early 1960s), Beksinski sometimes took expressionist deformations so far that the connection with reality almost disappeared, bringing his works closer to abstraction.
In 1960, Beksinski abandoned photography and focused on drawings, paintings, sculptures and reliefs, in which he experimented with form, materials and artistic processes (such as acidizing, boiling, polishing, etc.). In parallel, he continued to draw, initially creating medium-sized works made with pen or marker. Then, in the early 1970s, he began to move toward larger sizes, created with black chalk. These works are very similar in style and subject matter to Beksinski's paintings. Oil paintings appeared late in the artist's career - he only presented them to the public for the first time in 1970 - but he quickly became very successful in this field. The paintings usually depict a fantastic world: strange and desolate landscapes and mysterious creatures, mummified or resembling skeletons. At the same time, Beksinski draws and paints with extreme precision and attention to detail. Therefore, his works are evidence of both a fantastic but disturbing imagination and an impressive mastery of this difficult oil painting technique. Moreover, known for his perfectionism, Beksinski would sometimes spend several days working on a canvas, only to abandon the nearly completed work and start a new version.
The first major exhibition of Beksinski's work was held in 1964 in Warsaw. It presented mainly his drawings, which were received by the public and critics with mixed feelings. In the following years Beksinski participated in various individual and collective events, but it was only his exhibition at Warsaw's "Contemporary" gallery in 1972 that allowed the general public to discover and love his art.
In the 1980s, the artist gained an international reputation - mainly in France, Germany, Belgium and Japan - mainly due to the efforts of Piotr Dmochowski, who organized several exhibitions of the artist, published books and numerous articles about him; he financed and produced the film "Tribute to Beksinski." In 1989 he also founded the Beksinski Gallery-Museum in Paris, where he presented the artist's works until the gallery closed in 1995.
In 1999 the Historical Museum in Sanok, which has the largest collection of Beksinski's works, organized a large monographic exhibition, confirming his position as a well-known artist. Paradoxically, Zdzislaw Beksinski was an extremely closed-minded person: as early as 1977 he left his hometown, where he had become a celebrity, and settled in Warsaw, probably hoping to disappear into the anonymity of the capital. What's more, he never traveled abroad - he even refused to accept a grant from the Guggenheim Museum in New York - or attended the openings of his exhibitions.
He survived many personal tragedies: in 1998 his beloved wife died, and a year later his son committed suicide. On February 21, 2005, the artist was brutally murdered in his apartment in Warsaw.
