The Great Painters

Jerzy Nowosielski

- icon writer

Jerzy Nowosielski

Jerzy Nowosielski (portrait made by Zbigniew Kresowaty)

Jerzy Nowosielski

(1923-2011)

Raised at the crossroads of two cultures: East and West, with his life and art, he bridges the gap between Christianity and the breakdown of modern man. His painting, being a synthesis of Byzantium and avant-garde, gives the whole reality a sacred dimension. As he said about himself: "I am a man who simply clings to the icon as a certain signpost. An icon is an open matter, full of risk, full of question marks".
R

REFINED COLORS AND PRECISE COMPOSITION

R

MONUMENTAL SACRED PAINTING

R

AUTHOR OF ORTHODOX POLYCHROMIES

R

HIEROGLYPHIC PORTRAIT PAINTER

R

TINY LANDSCAPES

R

ABSTRACTIONS

R

"PICTURES IN PICTURE"

JERZY NOWOSIELSKI

1923

(7 January) Jerzy Nowosielski, son of Stefan (a unit from the Lemko region) and Anna Harlaender (a Catholic), was born in Krakow to a Polish-Ukrainian family. Jerzy was baptised in the Greek Catholic church and although he attended the Piarist Men's Gymnasium, he is raised in the Orthodox tradition.

1939

first contact of 16-year-old Jerzy with the collection of icons in the Ukrainian Museum in Lviv

i

1940

He started his education at the Kunstgewerbeschule, the only humanistic institution tolerated by the Germans (the Academy of Fine Arts, the avant-garde painting community), where Jerzy Nowosielski met his friends - future members of the so-called "Krakow Group".

1942-43

held a novitiate at the St John the Baptist's Laurel near Lviv

1945-47

He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, in the studio of Eugeniusz Eibisch. He was also Tadeusz Kantor's assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

1949

Jerzy Nowosielski exhibited his "triangular abstractions" at the 1st Modern Art Exhibition. During the exhibition the artist married Zofia Gutkowska, a colleague from Kunstgewerbeschule

1950

moved to Łódź with his wife

1951

Together with Adam Stalony-Dobrzański he designed polychromy for the church in Gródek. This is how Jerzy Nowosielski's greatest artistic adventure begins: monumental sacred painting. Soon, he also made his first independent project - the polychromy of the church in Kętrzyn.

1962

Jerzy Nowosielski returned to Krakow and started working at the Academy of Fine Arts. Since then, apart from painting other churches and Orthodox churches, his work at the Academy has become one of his most important activities. For 30 years, Prof. Nowosielski ran a studio at the Faculty of Painting, loved by the students and enjoying extraordinary authority in the academic community.
Jerzy Nowosielski

 

City at the foot of the mountains (landscape)

Z

1956

showed 12 paintings at the XXVIII Biennial of Art in Venice

1981-1986

he worked on the polychromy of the Holy Spirit Church in Nowe Tychy

1993

a large retrospective painting exhibition at the National Museum in Poznań; the artist is retiring from the Academy of Fine Arts

1996

in cooperation with the Starmach Gallery, establishes the Nowosielski Foundation together with his wife
r

1998

the artist was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta

2000

Jerzy Nowosielski becomes a doctor of honoris causa of the Jagiellonian University

2008

He received the Gold Medal "Gloria Artis" "Deserved Culture

2011

The artist died on 21 February in Krakow and was buried on 26 February in Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow.