Aleksander Kobzdej

Aleksander Kobzdej ( born September 12, 1920 in Olesko, Ukraine, † September 25, 1972 in Warsaw) was a Polish painter, stage designer and architect.

Life and work

Aleksander Kobzdej studied architecture from 1939 to 1941 in Lviv. He finished his studies in architecture in Gdansk at the Polytechnic 1945/46, and then went after the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts to study painting at around Władysław Lam ( 1893-1984 ).

Kobzdej began his painting in the style of Post-Impressionism. He eventually painted gradually more and more abstract. In the early 1940s he was well received in European realism of the picturesque finally towards the end of the 1940s led him to Socialist Realism.

From 1950 he was an active and regular participant at the official, government art awards in Poland, including the annual National Exhibition of Fine Arts, which was organized in Warsaw by the Ministry of Culture and Art. Slowly Kobdzej eventually evolved back away from socialist realism, his iconography went in the direction of exotic representations, which were mainly influenced by his travels to Vietnam and China. His art has won international recognition. In 1964, his works at the documenta in Kassel III were shown in the painting department.

Literature and sources

• Documenta III. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: Paintings and Sculpture; Volume 2: Hand drawings; Volume 3: Industrial design, graphic; Kassel / Cologne 1964