Jerzy Panek portrayed himself all his life. Ego sum - was the title given to one of his first self-portraits from 1942. The head, the portrait, and most often the self-portrait (because Panek would find his reflection in almost every motif) is the main theme of his work.Towards the end of his life, when he would hardly ever leave his atelier, he drew almost exclusively self-portraits, using crayon and etching techniques. When asked why that was his main theme, he would reply, “I do them because I know myself best of all”. Here’s my basic sentence. Ego sum. One may also say, ars longa, vita brevis, so I record this short life of mine in relation to eternity (...). Here the mirror is constantly the most important piece of equipment and tool ”.
He portrayed himself directly or indirectly. He was then a shepherd, the head from Dante’s Inferno, the criminal from Arrest Warrants, a character from a fair, a Blind Sex Maniac and a man with Piercing Eyes. Sometimes he was a dog or a lion, as the animals he engraved bear the mark of his face. He identified himself with the world he would reduce to his own likeness - as he was the one “he knew best”. His art is the key to his person. It sounds like a truism but it is not. In Kraków he is known not so much for his work as for his unconventional life-style, the subject matter of numerous anecdotes. Many of them are witty and amusing but some are disturbing and better not repeated. He fuelled this interest himself with his excesses and scandals - it was one of his faces after all - while he protected the privacy of art, which - as Stanislaw Rodzinski wrote - he did not like to expose. And that art of his, resulting from his life experience but in no way common, existed somewhere on the side: pure, authentic and incorruptible - a testimony to truth.
Jerzy Panek (1918-2001) is one of Polish greatest artists. He gained international recognition mainly as the creator of a great body of woodcut ( approximately 600 boards).He was famous as well for his painting and drawing. In the last period of his life he also practised metal graphic techniques, such as etching, sugar lift, dry pointand pastel. He was born in Tarnów. From 1937 to 1942 he studied at the Print Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (during the war renamed the Kunstgewerbschule). After the war he continued his studies at the Department of Painting at the same Academy in the ateliers of Prof.Eugeniusz Eibisch and Prof.Zbigniew Pronaszko. He graduated in 1955. In 1967/1968 he was a lecturer at the Academy. He gained many awards and distinctions, such as the Art Award of the Minister of Culture (1963), Gold Medal at the Art Triennial in New Delhi (1971), the Press Award of the Fourth International Graphic Biennial in Kraków (1972) the J. Cybis Award (1988). In 1993 the Senate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków awarded Jerzy Panek with the title of Honorary Professor. In 1998 he also received the City of Kraków Award and the Kraków Region Governor’s Award for his lifetime artistic achievement.
Jerzy Panek’s works can be found at such places as the National Museums of Kraków, Warszawa, Poznań, Wrocław, Bydgoszcz, as well as at the Museums of Modern Art in New York and Tokyo, The Wallace Collection in London, The Library of Congress in Washington, The Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, the Kupferstich Cabinet in Dresden, the Albertina Collection in Vienna and in private collections throughout the world.
more repros on the Polish website of Jan Fejkiel Gallery ( exhibitions/wystawy)
The project is supported by the City of Cracow
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