Jacek Sienicki (1925-2000), FLOWERS, 1983

oil/canvas, 65 x 40 cm
signed and dated p.d.: JS 20 XI 83
signed, dated and described on the back: Jacek SIENICKI | "KWIATY" | 83

Jacek Sienicki is one of the most important Polish post-war painters. As a young artist (he graduated from the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in 1954), he participated in the 1955 Arsenal - a famous manifestation of young art, an exhibition that broke with the aesthetics of Socialist Realism. However, Sienicki never sought to be at the center of avant-garde transformations. His work is separate, muted, ascetic. The painter limited the motifs of his representations to cityscapes, studio interiors, figures in interiors and still life. He recalled that painting "'his' subjects" gave him "a lot of difficulty, but also joy." "In these simple subjects to get the right 'transgression'" - he said - to be delicate and strong, to leave the banal, to go to those regions where something real can be born from [...] thinking, feeling nature, life, understanding the human condition" (quoted by M. Kitowska-Łysiak, Jacek Sienicki, biography available at: https://culture.pl/pl/tworca/jacek-sienicki).