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Zdzisław Beksiński (24 February 1929 – 21 February 2005) was a renowned Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor who is best known as a fantasy artist. Beksiński executed his paintings and drawings either in what he called a 'Baroque' or a 'Gothic' manner. The first style is dominated by representation, with the best-known examples coming from his 'fantastic realism' period when he painted disturbing images of a surrealistic, post-apocalyptic environment. The second style is more abstract, being dominated by form, and is typified by Beksiński's later paintings. Beksiński was murdered in 2005.
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Early life
Beksiński was born in the town of Sanok, in southern Poland. After studying architecture in Kraków, he returned to Sanok in 1955. Subsequent to this education, he spent several years as a construction site supervisor, which he hated. At that time, he became interested in artistic photography and photomontage, sculpture and painting. He made his sculptures of plaster, metal and wire. His photography had several themes that would also appear in his future paintings, presenting wrinkled faces, landscapes and objects with a very bumpy texture, which he attempted to emphasize (especially by manipulating lights and shadows). His photography also depicted disturbing images, such as a mutilated baby doll with its face torn off, portraits of people without faces or with their faces wrapped in bandages. Later, he concentrated on painting. His first paintings were abstract art, but throughout the 1960s he made his surrealist inspirations more visible.
Painting and drawing
Technique
Beksiński had no formal training as an artist. His paintings were mainly created using oil paint on hardboard panels which he personally prepared, although he also experimented with acrylic paints. He abhorred silence, and always listened to classical music while painting.
Fantastic realism
A prestigious exhibition in Warsaw in 1964 proved to be his first major success, as all his paintings were sold. Beksiński threw himself into painting with a passion, and worked constantly (always to the strains of classical music). He soon became the leading figure in contemporary Polish art. In the late 1960s, Beksiński entered what he himself called his "fantastic period", which lasted up to the mid-1980s. This is his best-known period, during which he created very disturbing images, showing a surrealistic, post-apocalyptic environment with very detailed scenes of death, decay, landscapes filled with skeletons, deformed figures and deserts. These paintings were quite detailed, painted with his trademark precision. At the time, Beksiński claimed "I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams". His highly detailed drawings are often quite large, and may remind some of the works of Ernst Fuchs in their intricate, and nearly obsessive rendering.
Despite the grim overtones, Beksiński claimed some of his works were misunderstood; in his opinion, they were rather optimistic or even humorous. For the most part, though, Beksiński was adamant that even he did not know the meaning of his artworks and was uninterested in possible interpretations; in keeping with this, he refused to provide titles for any of his drawings or paintings. Before moving to Warsaw in 1977, he burned a selection of his works in his own backyard, without leaving any documentation on them. He later claimed that some of those works were "too personal", while others were unsatisfactory, and he didn't want people to see them.
It is sometimes rumored that Beksiński's disturbing works are depictions of things he saw in a comatose statecitation needed. However, he never suffered from a coma.
Later work
The 1980s marked a transitory period for Beksiński. During this time, his works became more popular in France due to the endeavors of Piotr Dmochowski, and he achieved significant popularity in Western Europe, the United States and Japan. His art in the late 1980s and early 1990s focussed on monumental or sculpture-like images rendered in a restricted (and often subdued) color palette, including a series of crosses. Paintings in these style, which often appear to have been sketched densely in colored lines, were much less lavish than those known from his "fantastic period", but just as powerful. In 1994, Beksiński explained "I'm going in the direction of a greater simplification of the background, and at the same time a considerable degree of deformation in the figures, which are being painted without what's known as naturalistic light and shadow. What I'm after is for it to be obvious at first sight that this is a painting I made".
In the latter part of the 1990s, he discovered computers, the Internet, digital photography and photomanipulation, a medium that he focused on until his death.
Family tragedies
The late 1990s were a very trying time for Beksiński. His wife, Zofia, died in 1998; a year later, on Christmas Eve 1999, his son Tomasz (a popular radio presenter, music journalist and movie translator) committed suicide. Beksiński discovered his son's body. Unable to come to terms with his son's death, he kept an envelope "For Tomek in case I kick the bucket" pinned to his wall. Tomasz was a great fan of the band The Legendary Pink Dots. After his suicide, Polish editions and reissues of the band's albums were graced by Zdzisław Beksińki's digital art as covers, and were dedicated to the memory of Tomasz.
On 21 February 2005, Beksiński was found dead in his flat in Warsaw with 17 stab wounds on his body; two of the wounds were determined to have been fatal. Robert Kupiec (the teenage son of his long time caretaker), who later pleaded guilty, and a friend was arrested shortly after the crime. On 9 November 2006 Robert Kupiec was condemned to 25 years of prison, and his accomplice, Łukasz Kupiec, to 5 years by the court of Warsaw. Before his death, Beksiński refused a loan to Robert Kupiec.
The person
Although Beksiński's art was often grim, he himself was known to be a pleasant person who took enjoyment from conversation and had a keen sense of humor. He was exceptionally modest and somewhat shy, avoiding public events such as the openings of his own exhibitions. He credited music as his main source of inspiration. He claimed not to be much influenced by literature, cinema or the work of other artists, and almost never visited museums or exhibitions. The last time he went to a museum was in October 2004 with the young painter Lukasz Banach (now Norman Leto) and with Valdemar R. Plusa, his agent from Toronto and owner of Belvedere Gallery.
Beksiński avoided concrete analyses of the content of his work, saying "I cannot conceive of a sensible statement on painting". He was especially dismissive of those who sought or offered simple answers to what his work 'meant'.
Artistic legacy
To date, Beksiński is the only modern Polish artist to have had an exhibition in the National Museum of Art, Osaka in Japan. Beksiński left the copyrights to all of his works to the Historical Museum, in his hometown of Sanok Poland, which houses a dedicated museum to the Artist. He is still represented by his agent Valdemar R. Plusa, owner of Belvedere Gallery in Canada. Plusa handles Beksiński's copyrights for the Sanok museum, for the English speaking world, and has continued to maintain Beksinski's website [1], which features prints of his work for sale. A Beksinski museum (Muzeum Zdzisława Beksińskiego), housing 50 paintings and 120 drawings from the Dmochowski collection, opened in 2006 in the City Art Gallery of Częstochowa, Poland. A 'Beksinski cross', in the characteristic T-shape frequently employed by the artist, stands in the Nevada desert.
Sources
- Kulakowska-Lis, J. (Ed.) 2005: Beksiński 1, 3rd edn.; with introduction by Tomasz Gryglewicz. Bosz Art, Poland. ISBN 83-87730-11-4.
- Kulakowska-Lis, J. (Ed.) 2005: Beksiński 2, 2nd edn.; with introduction by Wieslaw Banach. Bosz Art, Poland. ISBN 83-87730-42-4.
- Cowan, J. (Ed.) 2006: The Fantastic Art of Beksinski - Zdzislaw Beksinski: 1929-2005, 3rd edn., Galerie Morpheus International, Las Vegas. ISBN 1883398-38-X.
- Dmochowski, A. & P. 1991: Beksiński - Photographies, Dessins, Sculptures, Peintures, 2nd edn., API Publishing (France?).
- Dmochowski, A. & P. 1991: Beksiński - Peintures et Dessins 1987-1991, 1st edn., API Publishing (France?).
- Gazeta Wyborcza, an interview with Zdzisław Beksiński: [2]
External links
- Zdzisław Beksiński Official Website
- Several exhibitions and large documentation about Beksinski
- Print editions Zdzisław Beksiński
- http://www.gnosis.art.pl/iluminatornia/sztuka_o_inspiracji/zdzislaw_beksinski/zdzislaw_beksinski.htm
- Biographies and analysis of his work
- Virtual gallery dedicated to Beksiński
- In Polish: An Artist does not live anymore. In memoriam for Zdzisław Beksiński by a film director Piotr Andrejew, KINO, no. 6/2005
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 15 November 2008, at 00:03.
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