Wieslaw Obrzydowski (1938 - 2017), Self-portrait, 2008

oil, canvas, 87 x 51 cm, signed p.d.: "WO'2008"



Studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, under the direction of: W. Taranczewski, T. Łakomski, C. Rzepiński. In 1966, he received his diploma in the studio of H. Rudzka-Cybisowa. Until the early 1980s, his work remained in the shadow of artistic life. The artist did not fit into the canons of avant-garde explorations of art of the 1960s and 1970s. In 1987, his works were exhibited as part of the exhibition "Radical Realism, Concrete Abstraction" at the National Museum in Warsaw. Two years later, the Sopot BWA organized a retrospective exhibition of his works. At the beginning of the 1980s, he was recognized as a precursor of "Polish Expressionism" and "a continuator of the figuration of the 1950s." It was then that W. Obrzydowski burned almost all the works he had created in 1966-68 and began to oppose the prevailing colorism. Wieslaw Obrzydowski was a total artist, everything was subordinated to art. All of his work derives from his life and the lives of his loved ones. Portraits of the family, self-portraits and everything that was close to the artist predominate. He was an expressionist and this was his organic affiliation - he told expressive stories in his paintings derived from the circle of his surroundings. Everything was created from gesture, spontaneously, bravura with simultaneous perfection and drawing proficiency. The artist's works can be found in the collections of the National Museum in Cracow, the Silesian Museum in Katowice, the Jagiellonian University Museum in Cracow, as well as in very numerous and significant private collections at home and abroad.