Jacek Sroka, Dangers of the City, etching with aquatint on paper, 25 x 21 cm, 15/100, 2009
Jacek Sroka - painter, graphic artist and illustrator. Born in Cracow in 1957. Studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, received his diploma in the Copperplate Workshop of Prof. Mieczyslaw Wejman, in 1981. From1981-1988, he was an assistant at the Graphic Arts Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. In 2018, he taught a course in printmaking at the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University in Beijing. From 2014 to 2018, he co-founded the Graphic Arts Center in Nantong, China.
He has exhibited paintings and prints in one hundred and twenty solo shows ( including Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Reykjavik, Amsterdam, Maastricht, San Francisco, Vienna, Lyon, Curitiba, Beijing) and several hundred group shows in Poland and around the world.
Retrospective museum exhibitions: Musee Des Beaux Arts,Chambery, France, 1995; Musee d'Ussel, France, 2005; National Museum in Krakow, 2008; Kunstverein Offenburg, Germany, 2008; National Museum, Przemyśl, 2011; Museum of the Lubuska Land, Zielona Góra, 2011; Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba, Brazil, 2013; Upper Silesian Museum, Bytom 2017.
The artist's works can be found in museum collections in Poland ( e.g. National Museum in Cracow, L. Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz, Upper Silesia Museum, Bytom; Museum of Art, Lodz; Museum of Contemporary Art, Radom, Jagiellonian Library,Cracow; Graphic Collections of PAU, Cracow ) and in the world ( e.g. Metropolitan Museum, New York; Graphishe Sammlung Albertina, Vienna; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Musee Savoisien, Chambery; Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliotheque National de France, Paris; Utsunomiya Museum of Art, Utsunomiya; Museu Oscar Niemeyer, Curitiba; Ningbo Art Museum, Ningbo) and numerous private collections.
The artist has won prizes and awards at the Mulhouse Biennale of Graphics (1984), the Toronto International Exhibition of Miniature Art (1986), Graphica Atlantica in Reykjavik (1987), the Vaasa Biennale of Graphics (1987), the Grand Prix at the Seoul Biennale of Graphics (1988), the I.Trybowski Award at the International Triennale of Graphics in Cracow (1994 ), among others.
Nominated for the "Polityka" Passport in 1996; winner of the Witold Wojtkiewicz Award (2001); awarded the Bronze Medal "Gloria Artis" and , awarded by the ZPAP Krakow District, the Medal Vive l'Art. He is a member of the Polish Academy of Skills (2022).