Jerzy Duda-Gracz
Jerzy Duda - Gracz ( born March 20, 1941 in Częstochowa, † 5 November 2004 Łagów Lubuski ) was a Polish painter and printmaker.
Life
He studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Katowice branch of the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. After graduating in 1988, he remained at the university as a lecturer. From 1992 to 2001 he lectured at the European Art Academy in Warsaw, later he was a professor at the Silesian University of Katowice in the Radio and Television Division and taught directing. All his life he was associated with Upper Silesia. In his pictures the dark Silesian industrial landscape reflects.
His works show a strong tendency to caricature. He painted his fellow citizens as they are - quarrelsome, sloppy, sometimes drunk, but also willing to make sacrifices, even heroic. Critics compared his work with Pieter Brueghel. But you could also find some similarity with Manfred Deix.
Each image has provided with a serial number of the artists. This is now helping in the prosecution of counterfeiting. Typical of his art is the oil painting " The Knights of the Apocalypse or moonlighting " (1977). Three construction workers, unshaven, wearing rubber boots and ragged gap, draw a concrete mixer. The scene, shown frontally, reminiscent of famous Russian troika - or the Berlin Quadriga. The clash of the banal topic and the pathetic presentation is typical of the art of Duda - Gracz. His art was not indifferent spectators.
During the boycott of the artist against the regime 1981-1989 he painted on. His paintings were unveiled, the former bitter reality.
The socio-critical painter succeeded to agree with the Catholic Church. He created a Golgotha - cycle for the Częstochowa Marie monastery.
Bibliography
- Jerzy Duda Gracz, K.T. Toeplitz, Arkady 1985, 1990
- Powroty, A. Matynia, Agaton 1994
- Duda Gracz, I.J. Kaminski, Penta, 1997