Jan DOBKOWSKI (b. 1942), Virgins, 1975

oil, canvas; 61 x 50 cm;
Signed and described on the back: Jan Dobkowski / "Virgins" 1975 / 61 cm x 50 cm. oil.
Image reproduced in the exhibition catalog: "JAN DOBKOWSKI. Journey to the Universe," [Warsaw 2022], p. 112.
The distinctive, synthetic formal layer and erotic subject matter make Jan Dobkowski's canvases memorable to the viewer. In 1967, while he was still a student at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, he and Jerzy "Jurry" Zielinski (1943-1980) founded the NEO-NEO-NEO art group. The duo worked together until 1970. It was at this time that Jan Dobkowski defined the way of artistic expression by basing it on precise, often multiplied lines and saturated, pure, intense colors. In 1968, the first red-green painting "Double Girl" is created, purchased for the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, which opens a series of analogous works successively expanded in the 1970s.