Czesław Słania

Czesław SLANIA ' ʧɛswaf ' slaɲa ( born October 22, 1921 in Czeladź, † 17 March 2005 in Kraków ) was an engraver of postage stamps and banknotes.

The Royal Swedish, Danish and Monegasque Hofgraveur Czesław SLANIA is known around the world for his artistic achievements and his craft industry. He has engraved more than 1,000 postage stamps, a world record, which is also in the Guinness Book. For a stamp he needed an average of less than one month. He is thus considered one of the fastest of his profession, which includes perhaps 100 artists worldwide, who create steel engraving templates for rotogravure printing of high-quality stamp issues.

There are several clubs in the world that deal with the work Slania. Collecting stamps is its own subject area of philately.

Life and work

Czesław SLANIA was born in the small Polish mining town Czeladź. Already in his childhood, showed his ability to work in a small format, as he used bills as a template for its artistic unfolding. He also drew thumbnails of portraits and horses as well as drawings of his classmates. He studied from 1947 at the Art Academy in Cracow, one of the most recognized colleges for graphic art. During his studies he got a job in the Polish State Printing offered, where he worked for six years. In 1951 released his first stamp.

1956 pulled the 35 -year-old Czesław SLANIA to Sweden and started in 1959 to work for the Swedish Post. For over 40 years he has engraved stamps for the Swedish Post. In addition, he also has many other countries around the world as the solid stamp customers. He was appointed in Sweden, Denmark and Monaco Hofgraveur and has received numerous awards for his precise engravings.

In addition to these three countries he stabbed stamps for Åland, Australia, Belgium, China, Germany ( 1995 postage stamp for Alfred Nobel, which appeared in the same form in Sweden ), Estonia, Faroe Islands ( 100 brands since 1976), France, Gibraltar, Greenland, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, United States, United Nations, the Vatican City and his native Poland.

Bills by Czesław SLANIA there are in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Israel, Canada, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Portugal and Venezuela.

He also has numerous private art engraved, he has created " for pleasure ", including a series of famous movie actresses, a series with world champions in the heavyweight boxing from 1889 to 1964 and, for example, a portrait of Pope John Paul II, which in 2002 was auctioned off at his request for needy Polish children.

Slania versatility becomes evident when one considers the broad range of topics with which he works and the range of royal portraits of flora and fauna to movie stars. He had to give even time and space, his tiny works of art a personal train, for example, a caricature of yourself or names of friends.

" It is a pleasure that the motives are so varied, " says SLANIA. "This makes the work of the engraver's very exciting. I like the most, when a subject has many different details, such as horses, clouds, skin, a small brooch ... that makes working wonderfully complicated, just like my 1000. Stamp. "His 1,000. Stamp was issued in 2000 for the Swedish Postal Administration and shows the painting Notable exploits of Swedish kings from David Klocker Ehrenstrahl ( 1695), which hangs in the Drottningholm Palace. With 60x81 mm, it is the largest stamp in intaglio printing of all time, and she was honored around the world (Figure).

In 1999 SLANIA was made an honorary citizen of his hometown Czeladź.