KRZYSZTOF
SKORCZEWSKI
Born 1947, Cracow, Poland
Studied at AFA in Cracow, Faculty
of Graphic Arts. Attended the Royal College of Art in Stockhom
in 1976, taking up copperplate then, which he practices to this day,
also teaching it at the European Academy of Art in Warsaw.
Selected Solo Exhibitions (to 1996)
1975
Pro Art Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden
1980
GP Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
BWA Gallery, Jelenia Gora, Poland
1981
BWA Gallery, Jelenia Gora, Poland
1982
Sormani Palace, Milan, Italy
1984
PN Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
1985
Inny Swiat Gallery, Cracow, Poland
1988
NDA Gallery, Sapporo, Japan
Inny Swiat Gallery, Cracow, Poland
PN Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
72 Gallery, Poznan, Poland
1991
The Museum of Copper, Legnica, Poland
Aneks Gallery, Poznan, Poland
1992
Rosso Tiziano Arte Gallery, Piacenza, Italy
PN Gallery, Warsaw, Poland
Inny Swiat and Camelot Galleries, Cracow, Poland
The Institute of Polish Culture, Prague, The Czech Republic
1993
The Polish Institute, Leipzig, Germany
1994
Balucka Gallery, Lodz, Poland
Joannart Gallery, Vicenza, Italy
Brama Gallery, Gliwice, Poland
Garbary 48 Gallery, Poznan, Poland
1995
The Institute of Polish Culture, Roma, Italy
Piano Nobile Gallery, Cracow, Poland
Galerie Provinciale and Jan Fejkiel Gallery, Liege, Belgium
Jan Fejkiel Gallery, Cracow, Poland
Collections
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
University of California, Berkeley, USA
Guilford's Art Gallery, Guilford College, Greensboro, USA
Harvard University, Divinity School, Cambridge, USA
Albertina Sammlung, Vienna, Austria
Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany
Muzeum Sztuki i Historii Fribourg, Switzerland
Muzeum Miedzi, Legnica (pelna kolekcja), Poland
Biblioteka Narodowa, Warsaw, Poland
Teatr Studio, Warsaw, Poland
National Museum, Warsaw, Poland
National Museum, Krakow, Poland
National Museum, Szczecin, Poland
National Museum, Gdansk, Poland
Muzeum im. L. Wyczolkowskiego, Bydgoszcz, Poland
Muzeum Ziemi Lubuskiej, Zielona Gora
Private collections in Poland, the United States and Australia
(Author
unknown)
The artistic work of Krzysztof Witold Skorczewski—the
young and unusually talented Cracovian graphic artist, has developed
in an unconventional manner, and has left its mark along the path
of his unusual artistic career. He commenced upon his independent
artistic activities over ten years ago while still a student at
the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Over a year before taking his diploma—from
about 1970, Skorczewski, while obviously influenced by the works
of Wojtowicz, Panek and Lutomski, produced the first examples of
his individual style—a graphic art expressed in the fine line
of linoleum prints. The wavy rhythm of the incisions, the contrasting
of black patches with the active white surface of paper, a particular
vibrating of surfaces enacted with the help of lines, ond attained
through a varied width of cuts and disquieting junctures of lines;
this unusually straightforward display of simple means of expression
went to make up Skorczewski's fisrst very own etchings in the years
1970—71 ("Associations", "Homographics").
Superficially, Skorczewski etchings of this period might bring to
mind the plasler engravings of Otreba, but they are made up of completely
different graphic matter, and have closer associations with the
human figure. The soft and pure lines and patches characteristic
of linoleum prints, accumulate and intertwine, toking on anthropomorphic
shape, and yet at the same time seem to be more o general summing
up of certain troits of human existence, than the characterization
of given events or persons. The simplicity of means of expression
produces a richness, ard the delicate subtleties of line find their
complex verificaticn in pictures. It seemed obvious at the time,
that the young artist had become fully mature artistically, having
discarded the whole ballast of form and meaning, that confronted
him in the field of art. He attained independence, and the chance
for a free and undoubtedly modern means of expression. Immediately
after his diploma in 1971, having evolved from the cycle "Associations",
Skorczewski produced a whole cycle of linoleum prints, wherein the
deliniations are brought to an almost secessionist decorativeness.
Certain human characteristics are generalized in a series of allegorical
portraits, which refer rather to certain traits of character, than
to particulor persons. And so we see an indifferent torso giving
rise to a head with the ears of a donkey or a hare; a series of
portraits without faces, which are sometimes expressive of birds
of prey and dashing cocks, and sometimes completely bereft of expression.
The towering growth and accumulation of flowing lines of varied
thickness and intensity goes to make up uncommonly uniform engravings,
which are almost abstract, and yet carry distinct literary associations.
Further events were quick to follow. In 1972, Skorczewski received
2nd prize at the Cracow Biennale of Graphic Art, and other awards
at home and abroad. It seemed that Skdrczewski's art was heading
along the already attained lines of perfection, the building of
graphic structures oscillating between a tendency for portrayal
and fiqurativeness, and abstroct semantic experimentation. Meanwhile,
success seems to have brought on second thoughts, ond in the following
two years Skdrczewski cut down on exhibitions, and his work became
more concentrated, as if centred on technique on the one hand, and
the anatomy of success on the other.
In 1976, we find Skorczewski continuing his graphic studies in the
workshop of Nil Stenquist at the Stockhotm Royal School of Art.
The work from this period is full of surprises, as I think it must
have been for Skorczewski himself in his first contact with the
completely new matter of copperplate engravnig. First there was
the dry-point: "Sheaf of Corn" taking on anthropomorphic
semblance, and then dozens of practice attempts—first at strippling,
and then etching. The new technique seems to have absorbed Skdrczawski's
whole artistic activity. From 1977—78, he etched five medium-sized
works from the series "Nemesis", which display a fully
developed and mature etching technique. And it turned out that this
new technique dictates an almost new and somehow different and less
generalized treatment of graphic presentation. There appeared extended
anecdotes permeated with specific metaphor, ond marked by the author's
particular predilection for symbolic presentation. Wcmen became
the central theme: women on enfuriated horses; women growing into
the ground; rising out of the waves; with and without children;
and organically growing into the chitinous armour of the tortoise.
Women as sex; women as symbols; women as allegories—allegories
of passing time. The next cycle—"Changes", was similar.
A symbolic presentation of the seasons, the seasons of human life,
the testing vehicles of human accomplishment. For two consecutive
years (1979—80), the artist wos preoccupied with nine medium-sized
etchings of incredible perfection, which seemingly departed from
the mature graphic forms attained some years previously. On outword
appeorance, they seemed completely different works of art, os if
the product of a different artist. However, closer anolysis of the
lines shows an incredible affinity between the formal technique
of eight years Q90, and the present-day copperplates. A regrading
has simply taken place, and an overpowering need for testing oneself.
A need for expressing one's attitude towards reality through a manifestation
of technique itself, through a return to more classical forms, and
through a keener studying of one's own sensitivity and understanding
of the world.
Therefore, what Krzysztof Skorczewski is doing today is, in a sense,
a consideration of his own condition as man and creator-creator
who has attained artistic succes, and the condition of man in general.
The artistic poth of Skorczewski is also an intriguing and true
parable of the situation of contemporary art. And although some
people may seek signs of regress in it, I foresee a full blossoming.
translated from the Polish by Boguslaw ROSTWOROWSKI
February 1980 |
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