TATARCZYK TOMASZ, Composition, 1982

crayon, pencil/paper, in św. p.p. 71.5 x 49 cm, framed 94 x 68 cm, signed in composition: 'TATARCZYK' [left], '82' [right].

Tomasz TATARCZYK (1947-2010)
One of the most important and singular artists of Polish painting at the turn of the 20th and 21st century, associated with the circle of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied in the studio of Prof. Stefan Gierowski. A two-time scholarship recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York and winner of the prestigious Jan Cybis Award (1990), he has developed a visual language that combines rigorous asceticism with a deep emotional charge.
Tatarczyk's work is a processual pursuit of a radical synthesis of nature. The artist became famous for his series of works in which motifs taken from the immediate environment - black boats, dogs, roads, hills or sheets of water - are reduced to the rank of archetypes and universal existential symbols. His painting is characterized by an extraordinary culture of matter: the dense, almost sculptural laying down of paint, the color range limited to monochrome and the masterful handling of light give his canvases a contemplative and metaphysical character.
The artist's works can be found in major public collections, including the National Museums in Warsaw, Poznan and Wroclaw, the Museum of Art in Lodz and the Zachęta National Gallery of Art. On the auction market, Tomasz Tatarczyk is considered a contemporary classic, whose works are a rare example of painting with a powerful power of expression, in which the physicality of nature meets the spiritual dimension of human experience.