147.0 x 96.0 cm - oil, canvas signed on the reverse on canvas l.g.: NIŻYJE | WOJNA ! | 36 [in a circle]
p.g.: E. DWURNIK | 1777 [in a frame] | - XIX [in a frame], next to: 1992
below: stamp authorizing export abroad,
on the middle bar of the loom a sticker: ART | HAMBURG | INTERNATIONALE MESSE | OSTEUROPAISCHER KUNST | 9. - 12. DEZEMBER 1993 annotation in marker: GALERIA | ZDERZAK | POLEN
Edward Dwurnik's work has always featured painterly commentaries on current events. He was an artist engaged with the happening events from the outside world, but mostly these were reactions to Polish reality, closest to Dwurnik. When the war in the Balkans broke out in the early 1990s, the artist's work also included references to events happening in other countries. The series of paintings "Long Live War!" initially became an expression of support for the independence aspirations of the Balkan states and later also Dwurnik's reaction to other events in the currently happening history: the secession of Abkhazia from Georgia or the hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh. Support for independence aspirations, however, was not without reflection on the ever-present cruelty of any war. Dwurnik's paintings belonging to this series have a dramatic expression and the support of the aspirations for independence by painting was hardly the result of the artist's naive enthusiasm.
Heads float in the open sky - smooth blue, blue and sapphire backgrounds. Heads on columns like monuments, like chess figures, heads cut off at the neck and heads framed in busts. Heads in military caps and helmets, and without caps, smiling, shouting, spitting, threatening, grinning, sad. And between them, in places, a single burning building, a car, an airplane, a checkerboard with a crow spreading its wings, a toppling column, a laurel wreath floating alone... The themes of the works have to do with the problems of the modern world, with wars waged by various minorities and majorities. The provocative title given by the artist to this series would indicate the legitimacy of this method of fighting for independence. But the paintings themselves - the symbols, allegories and attributes used in them, as well as the author's interpretation of them - seem to undermine this view and even ridicule it.
Katarzyna Pikoń, Long live the war, "Gazeta Wyborcza," no. 22/126, 28 - 31 May 1992
♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, a fee will be added, resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on copyright and related rights (droit de suite)
Edward Dwurnik (Radzymin 19 IV 1943 - Warsaw 28 X 2018) studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (1963-1970), but cites Nikifor as his "master." It was his works, seen for the first time in 1965, that inspired the then third-year student to draw the first works in the series "Hitchhiking Journeys," which he has continued to this day. In 1972-1978, the series "Sportsmen" was created, in which were portrayed, we should add - bitingly, typical figures of the 1970s. In parallel, from 1975, the series "Workers" was created, which culminated in the period of "Solidarity" 1980-1981. For the works of this series Dwurnik received in 1981 the Art Criticism Award named after Cyprian Kamil Norwid. Cyprian Kamil Norwid Art Criticism Award, while for his paintings from the series "Warsaw" (1981), prophetically foreshadowing martial law - he received the Cultural Award of the "Solidarity" underground in 1983. In the 1980s Dwurnik's painting took on expressive and dramatic expression. The paintings created in this decade often had a political meaning, they also took on a historical costume, in one way or another referring to contemporary issues and realities. The series "Road to the East" (1989-91) commemorated the victims of Stalinism, while the series "From December to June" (1990-94) - the victims of martial law. Both the ideological and purely painterly qualities of these works brought the artist great recognition, both at home and abroad. Its expression was the prestigious award of the Coutts & Co Foundation in Zurich (1992). In the 1990s, series are created as a continuation of "Hitchhiking Journeys": "Blue Cities" (from 1993) and "Diagonals" (from 1996), as well as compositions of a new type, such as sea views (the "Blue" series, 1992-93) and the "Enumeration" series (1996-99). The artist has exhibited extensively, has had about 100 solo exhibitions in Poland and abroad, and has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions and festivals, including: the 10th Biennale of Contemporary Art, Menton 1974, Documenta 7, Kassel 1982, the 5th Biennale, Sydney 1985, the 19th Art Biennale, Sao Paulo 1987; the Olympics of Art, Seoul 1988. In parallel with painting, he practiced drawing, collage, printmaking (lithography, metal techniques, xerography, stamps) and applied graphics (illustration, posters for his own solo exhibitions).
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