Tadeusz Brudzynski (1956 - 1996), WITHOUT TITLE, 1986

ink/paper, 65 x 50 cm
signed p.d.: oval author's stamp: TADEUSZ BRUDZYŃSKI | Warsaw| 1986

Studied at the School of Fine Arts in Toulouse from 1975 to 1976, then, until 1980, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, receiving his diploma in the studio of Professor Jacek Sienicki. In 1983, he moved to France. He lived and worked in Paris until his death in 1996. The following year, a monographic exhibition of the artist was organized in Warsaw's Zachęta Gallery. In the catalog accompanying the exhibition, Jacek Sienicki wrote about the prematurely deceased artist: "Fortunately, his work remains. The beautiful work of the artist. A rich output of a short life. Various themes on paper in small and large sketches [...]. The constant recurrence of man - his conflicts, existence, condition" ([in:] Tadeusz Brudzyński, Zachęta Gallery of Contemporary Art, July-August 1997 [exhibition catalogue], Warsaw 1997, p. 11).
Brudzyński's works depicting figures with deformed silhouettes, placed in an indefinite, abstract space, are part of the current of post-war figuration marked by existential anxiety. In Brudzynski's paintings we see traces of inspiration from Giacometti's work, but we also sense the atmosphere of Francis Bacon's paintings. His drawings, full of expression and at the same time formally economical, are grotesque in nature, betraying the artist's satirical bent.
"Freedom to think "freely" without thinking about what others think "freely" about. Freedom is within us, within each of us, we just need to reach for it. I don't think anyone can prevent me from doing so. Even in prison, you can remain a free man, and no thug will take that freedom away from you. The same applies to creativity. The point is not to write a lot and please the public, to paint a lot of pictures and hang them around bourgeois interiors. It's just about freedom. Money gives material freedom, not inner freedom. Even with great wealth, you can build a prison around yourself, and all it takes is a few zlotys to splurge on freedom..." Tomasz Brudzynski (artist's statement from 1993, quoted in Tadeusz Brudzynski, dz, cit., p. 7).