74.7 x 104.7cm - oil, fiberboard signed l.d.: DUDA GRACZ . 2386/99 .
On the reverse on the p. frame strip in marker: 44 V 97;
On panel four stickers m.l.:
- author's sticker with details of the painting and signature;
- stickers of exhibitions: Wroclaw, Katowice and Legnica.
Painting exhibited:
- Jerzy Duda Gracz. Pro memoria. Wroclaw collection, Wroclaw City Museum 8 I - 13 II 2005, Silesian Museum in Katowice 19 II - 10 IV 2005, Copper Museum in Legnica 15 IV - 28 V 2005;
- Prelude. Wroclaw Collection, Agra-Art Gallery, Warsaw 28 I - 3 III 2023.
Reproduced image:
- Jerzy Duda Gracz. Pro memoria. Wrocław Collection (exhibition cat.), City Museum of Wrocław, Wrocław 2005, p. 80, color illustrations, cat. no. 77;
- Prelude. Wroclaw Collection (exhibition cat.), Agra-Art, Warsaw 2023, pp. 42, 54, color ill. p. 43, cat. no. 17.
According to Greek mythology, Danae was the daughter of the king of Argos, who confined her in a bronze tower due to a prophecy stating that she would die at the hands of her grandson. The ruler's efforts proved futile - Zeus entered the chamber in the form of golden rain and begat Perseus with the goddess. The myth has lived to see many spectacular interpretations in European painting, especially modern painting. Jerzy Duda Gracz, known for his bold pastiches of classical works and themes, made Danae an inhabitant of Kamion - a picturesque, Warta River village located near Wieluń. It was one of the places in the province that the artist often visited on plein air painting trips. On the basis of notes, sketches and photographs taken in the field, he created a whole series of works devoted to lyrical views of Kamion, including two featuring the mistress of Zeus. One of them is a composition from the Wroclaw collection, the other is an older version of it in a smaller format, presented at the painter's retrospective exhibition at the Nowa Huta Cultural Center in 2015 (cf. Image 2362. Kamion - Danae, 1998).
In the representation, she captures above all the impressionistic beauty of the summer landscape, into which the figure of the "field" Danae - an ordinary country girl - has been harmoniously integrated. With her back turned to the viewer, she steps across a lush, sun-drenched, flowery meadow, surrendering with delight to the supernatural force of a stream of golden rain. Her naked body is, as it were, merged with nature, not dominating it, but co-creating it. Next to her, the silhouette of stately mullein - a medicinal herb with abundant, yellow, flowers - struts equidistantly.
Other heroines inhabiting the retiring landscape in the series of provincial-commune paintings, including Venus, Diana, Primavera, White and Black Ladies, Mistresses, Rusalka, resonate similarly with the wildlife. All of them form a unity with the landscape, which, under the influence of their presence, becomes a world from the borderland between dream and java.
♣ to the auctioned price, in addition to other costs, will be added a fee 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)
Jerzy Duda Gracz (Częstochowa 1941 - Łagów 2004)- painter, illustrator, stage designer, educator. He received his diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow at the Department of Graphics in Katowice in 1968. In 1976-82 he was a lecturer at the academy, then a professor at the Silesian University in Katowice. He also taught at the European Academy of Arts in Warsaw (1992-2001).
His paintings are characterized by technical virtuosity and attention to detail. He practiced art in the broadly defined realist convention with dominant figure deformation and grotesque. He created a world of unmasking, using the language of journalism and allegory. He is the author of several major projects, including the "Transfiguration" plafond in the church in Toporovo (1995) and the "Golgotha of Jasna Gora" series in the Monastery of the Pauline Fathers in Czestochowa (2000/2001). The artist has had more than 180 solo exhibitions at home and abroad (including Berlin, London, Paris, Moscow, Rome, Vienna, Florence, Düsseldorf, Chicago, New Delhi, Munich, New York and others). He participated in about 300 national exhibitions and international presentations of Polish art. He represented Poland, among others, at the XLI Art Biennale in Venice in 1984, at the XX and XXI World Art Fairs in Cologne in 1986 and 1987, and at EXPO '92 in Seville. Jerzy Duda Player's paintings are in the collections of the National Museums in Warsaw, Cracow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Gdansk, the Jagiellonian University Museum in Collegium Maius in Cracow, the Museum of the Earth of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, the art collection at Jasna Gora in Czestochowa and other district and city museums, and in private collections, including those of W. Ochman and W. Fibak; abroad - in the collections of the Uffizi in Florence, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Ghent City Museum, the "BAWAG" Foundation in Vienna and the Vatican Collection, as well as in the galleries and collections of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Israel, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, Venezuela, the UK, Italy and Hungary.
Recently viewed
Please log in to see lots list
Favourites
Please log in to see lots list