Kiejstut BEREŹNICKI, Salome
oil, canvas
50 x 60 cm
signed on the reverse
Kiejstut Bereźnicki (b. 1935), studied at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Gdansk, where he received his diploma in the studio of Prof. Stanislaw Teisseyre in 1958. Since 1960, he has worked at the academy, since 1982 running his own painting studio. From 1981 to 1984 he served as vice-rector. Since 1984 he has been a professor. He has participated in exhibitions since 1959, achieving numerous successes, such as: first prize at the National Exhibition of Young Painting, Sopot 1965, gold medal at the Sixth Festival of Fine Arts, Warsaw 1968, award at the Third International Triennial of Realistic Painting, Sofia 1979. In addition, he participated in the Third Biennale of the Young, Paris 1963 and the Eighth Biennale of Sao Paulo 1965, among others, and had numerous solo exhibitions at home and abroad. He developed an individual style early on, which distinguishes his painting as a distinct phenomenon in Polish contemporary art. He refers to realism, moreover, to old art of local, Gdansk origin and expression. He creates still lifes, feasts, mythological scenes and allegories archaized in this mood, but above all hieratic bourgeois portraits, often double and collective. Initially playing out his compositions in almost monochromatic color ranges, in the 1980s he lightened and diversified his palette, especially in religious compositions and a series of "carnivals." Similarly, a series of pink and brown still lifes was created in the 1990s.
