JERZY
PANEK
1918-2001
Selected Solo Exhibitions
1956
House of Culture, Peking, China
1958
Salon of New Culture, Warsaw, Poland
1959
The Polish Institute, Vienna, Austria
The Polish Institute, Berlin, Germany
The Polish Institute, Prague, Czech Republic
The Polish Institute, Budapest, Hungary
Society of Austrian-Polish Friendship, Vienna, Austria
1964
Spectator and Artist Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
1966
Contemporary Gallery of the International Press and Book Club, Warsaw,
Poland
1984
Gologorski & Rostworowski Gallery, Cracow, Poland
1985
In Zabo Gallery, Nuremberg, Germany
1986
Gologorski & Rostworowski Gallery, Cracow, Poland
1991
Jan Fejkiel Gallery, Cracow, Poland
Kordegarda Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
BWA Gallery, Bialystok and Sopot, Poland
The Town Hall, Paderborn, Germany
Monchehaus, Museum of Modern Art, Goslar, Germany
1992
Jan Fejkiel Gallery, Cracow, Poland
Forum East-West, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany
1994
Rosso Tiziano Arte Gallery, Piacenza, Italy
1995
Society of Art Connoisseurs, Oerlinghausen, Germany
1996
The Polish Institute, Leipzig, Germany
The Polish Institute, Berlin, Germany
Group Exhibitions
Several hundred in Poland and abroad.
Selected Collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Library of Congress, Washington, USA
Wallace Collection, London, England
Print Collection Albertina, Vienna, Austria
Prints Cabinet, Dresden, Germany
National Museum, Warsaw, Poland
National Museum, Crakow, Poland
National Museum, Bydgoszcz, Poland
National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
Jerzy
Panek (1918-2001)
The exhibition of the output of Jerzy Panek (1918-2001) belongs
to the series of expositions which exhibit creative works of masters
of Krakow modern graphic arts in the National Museum in Krakow.
This time it will remind us of the output of one of the most outstanding
artists of Polish post-war woodcut craft, a full of passion painter
and a perfect drawer.
There are no that many opportunities to experience the art which
combines a value of both universal and deeply humanistic message
with a very simple and at the same time discovering formula of artistic
imaging; the art which is able to awake emotions from the deep in
the audience, the art which allows to experience the feeling of
the community not only with the artist but also with the whole world
which he presents. These are the works which Jerzy Panek left us
with (1918-2001). That Krakow artist had a talent for enormous artistic
intuition and incomparable skills of creation of original and accurate
message.
Mister Panek started graphic/printing higher education studies in
the State Institute of Fine Arts in Krakow in 1937 and during the
war he continued them in Staadtliche Kunstgewerbeschule. Then he
studied at the Painting Faculty of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts
(1945-1948), where he received his graduate diploma in 1955. He
was also shortly associated with the Krakow Academy as a painting
lecturer (1967/1968).
However, he chose the graphics not painting as his basic field of
work. In the scope of graphics he practised mainly longitudinal
woodcut work, which was black and white. During his more than thirty-year-long
woodcut production he made almost 600 graphic works, concurrently
having had painted oil paintings and created thousands of drawings.
He used the nearest surrounding looking for the motives: he made
self-portraits and the portraits of the closest and acquaintances,
preserved the images of favourite animals; sometimes he brought
images of landscapes and old architecture from plen-air. Very frequently,
he joint his graphics in thematic series. The largest one, which
included more than one hundred works, was his Head Series, inspired
by the „Divine Comedy” by Dante.
The graphic output of Jerzy Panek was heavily influenced by his
journey to China in 1956. During that trip he saw traditional Chinese
woodwork which confirmed direction of his own individual quest,
both in form and in word. Soon, he developed his own, easily recognisable
and unique style which was characterised by resignation from anecdote,
simplified, synthetic, differentiated form which could be observed
almost in every work, delivering not image of items but rather their
marks. The wooden passion of the artist and his specific treatment
of a wooden board resulted in almost individual works of art, which
were his wooden matrixes. By the way, his last woodcut boards which
appeared in 1983, he treated exactly as sculpture works, leaving
them untouched, without the printing paint.
Jerzy Panek created fresh and frank printing, suggestive graphics,
full of expression, which now still reveals great sensitivity, often
hidden under kind irony. The same features can be found in his paintings
and drawings, in which he revealed vivid temper and freedom, because
as an artist, he functioned perfectly well in two worlds without
inner contradictions: in the white and black sphere of most often
linear printing and in the world of colourful, facture stains of
his paintings.
Although he was widely recognisable both in the artistic and critical
worlds, which was proved by numerous, not only Polish honours and
awards, he did not have many individual exhibitions. The artist
admitted that preparation of an exhibition was just a loss of time
which he wanted to devote to his own creative work having had treated
it as the main mission of his life.
The exhibition of almost 300 works of Jerzy Panek which will be
held in the National Museum in Krakow: graphics, paintings, drawings
from both private and public collections, and numerous woodcut boards
which were given by him as a gift to the National Museum in Krakow,
strives to somehow make up for lack of presence of this extraordinary
artist. His character and famous workshop in Krakow Kazimierz District
will be reminded of by an improvised atelier which will be made
of original equipment, rich collection of photographic documents
as well as publishing houses which will accompany the exhibition.
The exhibition shall take place concurrently with a jubilee edition
of the Krakow International Graphics Triennale. This event serves
duly to popularize current achievements of the world printing which
commencement was accompanied by the creative activity of Jerzy Panek.
The Main Building of the National Museum in Krakow, al. 3 Maja 1,
15 September – 5 November 2006. |
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