Jan Dobkowski, NOKTURN LXXXXVII, 2000

89,0 x 100,0 cm - acrylic, canvas signature p.d.: Jan Dobkowski 2000.

signed on the back on canvas p. g.: Jan Dobkowski | "NOKTURN LXXXXVII" 2000 YEAR | ACRYL | 89 cm x 100 cm



When painting this series, I thought of Chopin's Nocturnes, says the artist. And indeed, Dobkowski's Nocturnes are as gentle and lyrical as Chopin's lyrical masterpieces, although it is clear that there are disturbing charges gathering in the depths, which sometimes leak out from underneath. Some of the black figures - human, though sometimes surprisingly, "erotically" simplified - come disturbingly close to the surface of the painting, as if they want to go beyond the calmly shimmering background. (...) They are alive, moved by the same emotions as we are, lovingly united with the world, with music, with the universe.

Krzysztof Lipka, Jan Dobkowski. Nocturnes, Artemis Gallery, Krakow 2011 [n.d.].

♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, based on 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).

Jan Dobkowski (Łomża 1942, lives in Warsaw) studied from 1962-1968 at the Faculty of Painting of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts under Prof. Juliusz Studnicki and Jan Cybis. While still a student, in 1966, he formed an artistic duo, with Jerzy (Jurry) Zieliński as his partner. Their first joint exhibition, entitled Neo-Neo-Neo, took place in Warsaw in 1967, and they exhibited together until 1970. 1968 saw Dobkowski's first green and red paintings (using the pseudonym Dobson at the time). In these works, operating with supple, wavy lines, in which the influence of Art Nouveau was seen, the artist used methods straight out of op-art to produce optical illusions (swirling, blurring, apparent movement of forms). In parallel with his paintings, he also created plate and foil forms for mounting in space. A gold medal at the Golden Grape Symposium in Zielona Gora in 1971 and a nearly year-long stay in the US on a Kosciuszko Foundation scholarship in 1972 were the next stages of the painter's successful career. A marked change in the mood and meaning of his works came with the events of 1980-1981, especially the introduction of martial law. At that time he marked his monochromatic, dark canvases with faint, flaccid lines of drawing. The most common motifs were patriotic and religious symbols, spiced up with titles alluding to the realities of the time. Another radical change occurred around 1990. The symbolic harbinger of the new period became a huge, joyful painting exploding with a wealth of colors, shapes and movement ...and life is flowing.... (394 x 588 cm) from 1990-1991. Similar formal features characterize the artist's work throughout the decade of the 1990s. In parallel with painting, Dobkowski works on drawing, which is a very important complement to his work.