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Culture
Jerzy Nowosielski(Born January 7, 1923)
) is a Kraków-born outstanding Polish painter, graphic artist, stage designer, and illustrator, known worldwide for his religious compositions and icons. During the Nazi period in the years 1940-42, he studied at the Krakow Kunstgewerbeschule, and later, in the period of 1945-1947, at the Academy of Fine Arts Painting Department in Krakow. His works were presented at an official exhibition of a Group of Young Graphic Artists, gathered around Tadeusz Kantor, held in June 1945, and a year later at an exhibition preceded by the publication of the manifest of "intensified realism" by Tadeusz Kantor and Mieczysław Porębski. Since 1947, he had been Professor Assistant to T. Kantor at the State School of Plastic Arts. In 1950, he assumed the position of artistic manager of the State Puppet Theatre Management. With his wife, Zofia Gutkowska, they designed many costumes and stage settings for puppet theatres in Łódź and Bielsko Biała. In 1957, J. Nowosielski was one of the founders of the famous re-established Krakow Group Artistic Association, which from 1958 has had its residence and gallery in the Krzysztofory Palace. In the years 1976-1992, he was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. Since 1944, he has been a member of the Polish Academy of Abilities. In 1993, he was a winner of the Great Award of the Culture Foundation for outstanding achievements in culture. In 2000, Jerzy Nowosielski was presented with the Jagiellonian University Doctor Honoris Causa honorary degree.
His first solo retrospective exhibition was presented in 1956 in Łódź. Then followed more exhibitions put on in Krakow, Berlin and Leipzig. Presently, his works are exhibited in all major museums in Poland and in many private collections (among others, in Japan, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, USA, and Italy). In 1993, the National Museum in Poznań prepared a great retrospective exhibition of his works, and later presented in Wrocław, Warsaw, and Krakow. In 2003, on the occasion of an exhibition of Nowosielski's works in Zachęta, the Starmach Gallery published the comprehensive monograph of the artist.
Jerzy Nowosielski's great artistic achievements include religious works (wall paintings in churches, iconostases, and cult paintings), figural scenes (e.g. nudes, swimmers, or gymnasts), portrait studies, as well as landscape painting, still life and abstract paintings. Nowosielski's figural paintings draw on old Russian icons and ancient art of Egypt; geometry combined with automatism prevails in his abstract painting.
Jerzy Nowosielski is an author of a great many polychrome frescoes and iconostases in Catholic and Orthodox churches. The artist's outstanding achievement is an interior decoration of the church in Wesoła near Warsaw. Nowosielski also designed furniture and liturgical vestments as well as decorating the interiors in orthodox churches in Gródek and Zawiercie, as well as a Greek Catholic church in Biały Bór (Koszalińskie Voivodship), as he designed from the very beginning (architecture, interior design and polychrome frescoes) in the years 1992-1997. Worth mentioning are also his iconostases in Passing of Our Lady, Mother of God Orthodox Church in Krakow (1972), polychrome in newly formed Passing of Mother of God Unite Church in Lourdes (1984), iconostases in St. Dorothy Chapel in the Augustinian Church in Krakow, paintings in St. Cross Church in Warszawa-Jelonki district, 1964, in the Krakow churches of the Order of the Reformati and on the Azores Islands, 1978, and in the Descent of the Holly Spirit Church in Tychy.
In 1995, he completed the polychrome of the refectory in an orthodox church in Krakow. He carried out the works in this building since the sixties' planning to design the church's entire interior decoration. Inside the church are his polychromes in the wood and walls, iconostases and icons. The City of Krakow presented him with an award at the request made by an Orthodox Parish.
An icon has been the inspiration for his vision of a human being. Nowosielski's paintings are marked by surrealism, as well as abstract and na?ve art, (deindividualisaion, hieraticism, stillness, monumentalism, simplification of forms and use of big space). Expressive colours of canvasses are accompanied by their economical use.
In 1996, together with his wife, he founded the Nowosielskis' Foundation. Its mission was to support exceptionally talented artists, granting them scholarships and founding annual artistic awards. Andrzej Starmach, conservator and holder of Jerzy Nowosielski works, is the Chairman of the Foundation. The Foundation has its seat at Starmach Gallery in ul. Węgierska 5 in Krakow. He is the author of theoretical publications about the icon and painting among which are: Around the Icon. Talks with Jerzy Nowosielski (1985) or Otherness of the Orthodox Church (1991).
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His first solo retrospective exhibition was presented in 1956 in Łódź. Then followed more exhibitions put on in Krakow, Berlin and Leipzig. Presently, his works are exhibited in all major museums in Poland and in many private collections (among others, in Japan, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, USA, and Italy). In 1993, the National Museum in Poznań prepared a great retrospective exhibition of his works, and later presented in Wrocław, Warsaw, and Krakow. In 2003, on the occasion of an exhibition of Nowosielski's works in Zachęta, the Starmach Gallery published the comprehensive monograph of the artist.
