Jacek Sienicki, Skull, 1985

60,5 x 74,0cm - oil, canvas signature selected in paint p.g.: XI 85. JS.

signed on the back on canvas: Jacek | Sienicki | ol.pł | "CZASZKA" | XI 85, next to it a stamp authorizing export abroad

on the reverse, on the g. rails of the loom, partly destroyed sticker of the Artistic Exhibitions Bureau "Zachęta" in Warsaw, next to it a sticker with the number 1032. on the l. rails of the loom, a sticker of the Crafts Co-operative in Grodzisk Mazowiecki.



Image described and reproduced:

- Jacek Sienicki, Browarna Gallery, 1994, graphic design. Andrzej Biernacki, color ill. p. 121, list of reproductions ill. 82 s. 141.



In his text on Sienicki's painting, Stanislaw Rodzinski wrote the following about the paintings with the horse's jaw motif: The subject itself imposes a parallel with the eternal "vanitas", so there is a kind of tribute to tradition in it. but the realization will again be a constant struggle, a painterly cleansing. When we look at the paintings of this series, it is easy to see that they are, like most of the works of this artist, painted thickly, with paste, spatula, thick brush. With such a method of work, this layering, transformations of form and color, the painting itself is not visible. This is because successive planes irreversibly hide the previous ones underneath. Others, peeled off with putty, disappear irretrievably from the painting. (...) By narrowing his subjects, choosing particularly unglamorous ones - he wants them to be valued for their painterly value, not for their originally put together props. (...) The series of still lifes with the jaw of an animal also allows one to trace, perhaps most accurately, how a still life set on a table becomes, thanks to imagination corrected by method - successively: a study of color, a study of expressive shaping of matter, and finally a study of the way to the sign, that element which is synonymous with one of the fundamental quests of contemporary art.

(Stanisław Rodziński, Jacek Sienicki, text in the catalog of Jacek Sienicki's solo exhibition, BWA Krakow, 1971, pp. 14-16)





♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Jacek Sienicki (Warsaw, February 29, 1928 - Warsaw, December 14, 2000) studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where he received his diploma in the studio of Prof. Artur Nacht-Samborski in 1954. In 1955 he was a participant in the Exhibition of Young Visual Arts at the Warsaw Arsenal. Participation in this manifestation was not only a proper debut for the artist, but also defined for years his attitude, shared with other "Arsenalists", whose principles were: the primacy of ethics, skepticism towards passing artistic fashions, loyalty to oneself. In 1955 Sienicki began teaching at his alma mater. He passed through all academic levels, receiving the title of professor in 1981. He was the recipient of significant awards, including the Cyprian Kamil Norwid Criticism Award in 1974, the Jan Cybis Award (independent) in 1984, and the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award in 1993. From his early years, his painting oscillated between figurativism with an often dramatic existential message and a tendency toward abstraction. At the same time, the painter did not abandon a rather limited set of favorite motifs, which included horse skulls, elongated figures, dark interiors, which he played out in a similar dark-cold color range. In parallel to painting, he drew a lot, usually in charcoal, treating works in this technique as autonomous works.