Jerzy Duda Gracz, PAINTING 930 (JURAJSKI), 1985

21 x 17.5 cm - oil on fiberboard

signed lower left: D.G. 930/85.
On the reverse, two labels: – the artist’s label with the painting’s details; – a label from a solo exhibition in Moscow in 1987.
Jerzy Duda Gracz began the “Jurassic” series in 1983. Tired of grappling with reality, embittered for various reasons, and perhaps even disoriented by the course of events, the artist began at that time to paint works completely different from his previous ones, grouping them under the common title “Jurassic” and distinguishing them only by numbers, according to their place in the catalog of his own work that he maintained. In part, they depicted reflections of landscapes from the areas around Częstochowa, Zawiercie, and Wieluń—that is, regions largely overlapping with the topography of the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, and at the same time well known to the painter from his early years. (Ireneusz Kamiński, Duda Gracz, Penta, Warsaw 1997, p. 173)



The painting was exhibited, mentioned, and reproduced, among others, in: The painting was exhibited:
– Jerzy Duda Gracz – Painting (1968–1986), Central House of Visual Artists, Moscow 1987.

♣ Droit de suite: ♣ A fee resulting from the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994, on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite) will be added to the Purchase Price.

Jerzy Duda Gracz (Częstochowa 1941 – Łagów 2004) – painter, draftsman, set designer, educator. He received his diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Faculty of Graphic Arts in Katowice, in 1968. From 1976 to 1982, he was a lecturer at that institution, and later a professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice. He also taught at the European Academy of Arts in Warsaw (1992–2001).
His painting is characterized by technical virtuosity and attention to detail. He practiced art within a broadly defined realist tradition, marked by the dominant use of figure deformation and the grotesque. He created a world of expository nature, employing the language of journalism and allegory. He is the author of several major works, including the ceiling painting “The Transfiguration” in the church in Toporów (1995) and the “Golgotha of Jasna Góra” series at the Pauline Monastery in Częstochowa (2000/2001).
The artist has held over 180 solo exhibitions in Poland and abroad (including in Berlin, London, Paris, Moscow, Rome, Vienna, Florence, Düsseldorf, Chicago, New Delhi, Munich, New York, and others). He has participated in approximately 300 nationwide exhibitions and international presentations of Polish art. He represented Poland, among other events, at the 41st Venice Biennale in 1984, at the 20th and 21st World Art Fairs in Cologne in 1986 and 1987, and at EXPO ’92 in Seville.
Jerzy Duda Gracz’s paintings are held in the collections of the National Museum in Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Wrocław, and Gdańsk; the Jagiellonian University Museum at Collegium Maius in Kraków; the Museum of the Earth of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, in the art collection at Jasna Góra in Częstochowa, and in other regional and municipal museums, as well as in private collections, including those of W. Ochman and W. Fibak; abroad—in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Ghent City Museum, the “BAWAG” Foundation in Vienna, and the Vatican Collection, as well as in galleries and collections in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Israel, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, Venezuela, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Hungary.