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.

Interesting facts:

Provocations
Jerzy Nowosielski is considered to be one of the most outstanding theologians of Orthodoxy. He wrote essays on the borderline of theology, philosophy and art ("Around the Icon" 1985, "Innocence of Orthodoxy" 1991, "My Christ" 1993). His often controversial and iconoclastic theories have the fervour of confession of faith and the value of intellectual provocation.
Polychromy
Jerzy Nowosielski is the author of decorations for nearly 30 churches: Orthodox, Uniate and Roman Catholic. His religious wall painting is characterized by a rich theological programme, monumental sense and attention to harmony of the whole interior. Apart from polychromies and iconostasis, he sometimes designs the Way of the Cross, stained glass windows, flooring, and even liturgical equipment and robes.
Nikifor
At the beginning of his artistic path, Nowosielski exhibited together with Nikifor (1895-1968).
Jerzy Nowosielski
Jerzy Nowosielski Room in the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, where 10 works of the artist were presented in 2012-2015

About the art of Jerzy Nowosielski:

"Drawing makes me feel a bit of a writer"
 – Jerzy Nowosielski. Drawing played a very important role in his work, it was a completely separate practice, parallel to painting, a kind of "writing" - for telling and reading.

From the very beginning, Jerzy Nowosielski, apart from figuration and sacral painting, has been practicing abstraction. The artist has made a series of sketches combining surrealistic automatism with geometry. Configurations of squares, trapeziums, zigzags of triangles, puzzling puzzles, tanograms, resemble models of solids spread out on paper segments. Sketched reflexively, spontaneously, they reveal a cipher which organizes the whole world of the painter internally.

"The colour with which I painted the emerging forms resembled the colour of the countries I missed when I was a child, that is to say Abisinia - the battle plan and the blue colour of the Abyssinian mountains. This is how "The Battle of Addis Ababa" was created.
 – Jerzy Nowosielski

Jerzy Nowosielski
Crucifix of Jerzy Nowosielski in St. Dominic's Church in Służewo in Warsaw
Jerzy Nowosielski
Paintings in the chancel of the Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross in Warsaw (on Jelonki)
Nowosielski's portraits, called "hieroglyphic portraits", are a record of a man, they seem to capture not his appearance, but his essence. The face-masks, idiot faces devoid of any special features. They are hieratic and full of dignity. "Double portrait" belongs to a series of "musical" portraits. The composition of the painting refers to the first in the history of modern double portrait art: The "Spouses of Arnolfinich" by Jan van Eyck (1390-1441). In this portrait, the artist's play with space begins, the motif of "picture in picture", the interpenetration of reflections and views - typical of the painter's imagination.
In his landscapes, Jerzy Nowosielski likes shots from above, seen from a bird's eye view (or maybe by God's eye?): steep, deserted streets, urban settlements cut by tram tracks, endless feathers of tenement houses - marked by the rhythm of mysterious blue windows, aft doors, mysterious barrels.
The woman has remained the painter's favourite and most grateful model, always maintaining a mystical-infernal ambiguity. The elongated and ascetic nudes - filtered through the experience of the icon - are an example of the aesthetic sublimation of sensuality, but still retain an extraordinary load of eroticism.

The sacred works of Jerzy Nowosielski:

Jerzy Nowosielski
Church of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God in Biały Bór
galeria marzeń

France:

  • Lourdes - Dormition Church of Our Lady
Jerzy Nowosielski

Macedonia:

  • Skopie - Municipal Museum
Jerzy Nowosielski

Czech Republic:

  • Prague - National Museum
galeria marzeń

Poland:

  • Biały Bór - Church of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God
  • Dojlidy - Church of St. Elijah the Prophet
  • Gdańsk - St. Nicholas Church
  • Górowo Iławieckie – cerkiew Podwyższenia Krzyża Świętego
  • Grodzisk k/Drohiczyna – cerkiew
  • Gródek – cerkiew Narodzenia Matki Bożej
  • Hajnówka – cerkiew cmentarna
  • Jelonki – kościół Podwyższenia Krzyża Świętego
  • Jerzmanowice – kościół św. Bartłomieja
  • Kętrzyn – cerkiew Zaśnięcia Matki Bożej
  • Kraków – Galeria Starmach – cerkiew Zaśnięcia Matki Bożej – kościół Reformatów – kościół Dominikanów
  • Nowe Tychy – kościół św. Ducha
  • Olszyny – kościół
  • Tarnów – kościół Podwyższenia Krzyża Świętego
  • Tyniec – klasztor Sióstr Oblatek
  • Warszawa – Muzeum Archidiecezji
  • Wesoła k/Warszawy – kościół Opatrzności Bożej
  • Wrocław – katedra prawosławna św. Barbary – cerkiew Podwyższenia Krzyża Świętego
  • Zbylitowska Góra – kościół

Paintings by Jerzy Nowosielski:

  • MONUMENTAL SACRED PAINTING 99% 99%
  • AUTHOR OF ORTHODOX POLYCHROMIES 86% 86%
  • HIEROGLYPHIC PORTRAIT PAINTER 78% 78%
  • TINY LANDSCAPES 85% 85%
  • ABSTRACTIONS 100% 100%
  • "PICTURES IN PICTURE" 89% 89%
  • REFINED COLORS AND PRECISE COMPOSITION 99% 99%
galeria marzeń

Kraków:

  • Muzeum Narodowe. Można tam podziwiać m. in.:
    • „Bitwa o Addis Abebę” namalowany w 1947
    • „Pożar” namalowany w 1948
    • „Krajobraz miejski (skrzyżowanie)” namalowany w 1965
    • „Villa dei Misteri” namalowany w 1968
    • „Dziewczyna w ciemni” namalowany w 1971
    • „Villa dei Misteri” namalowany w 1975
Jerzy Nowosielski
City at the foot of the mountains (landscape)
galeria marzeń

Warszawa

  • Galeria Zachęta – Muzeum Narodowe. Można tam podziwiać m. in.:
    • „Dom gołębi” namalowany w 1948
    • „Portret podwójny” namalowany w 1956
    • „Wiolonczelista” namalowany w 1958
    • „Wschód słońca w Bieszczadach” namalowany w 1963
    • „Dwie kobiety w ciemni” namalowany w 1973
galeria marzeń

Wrocław:

  • Muzeum Narodowe. Można tam podziwiać m. in.:
    • „Martwa natura z lustrem” namalowany w 1954
    • „Półakt czarny” namalowany w 1971
galeria marzeń

Poznań:

  • Muzeum Narodowe. Można tam podziwiać m. in.:
    • „Obecność kobiet – wnętrze z kobietami” namalowany w 1977
galeria marzeń

Własność artysty:

  • „Pejzaż łódzki” namalowany w 1951
  • „Portret mężczyzny” namalowany w 1954
  • „Tajemnica narzeczonych” namalowany w 1962
  • „Jordan (Chrzest Chrystusa)” namalowany w 1962
  • „Męczeństwo św. Agaty” namalowany w 1962
  • „Lotnisko” namalowany w 1962
  • „Sobotni wypoczynek” namalowany w latach 1962-1963
  • „Rzeźnia” namalowany ok. 1962-1963
  • „Pejzaż z Bolkowa” namalowany w 1967
  • „Kolejka w górach namalowany w 1972
  • „Abstrakcja” namalowany w 1973
  • „Pejzaż z Harendy II” namalowany w 1975
  • „Cerkiewka niebieska w Karpatach I” namalowany w 1977
  • „Monastyr” namalowany ok. 1987
  • „Zielona wodnista martwa natura” namalowany w 1987
  • „Las” namalowany w 1987
  • „Plaża” namalowany w 1998
  • „Abstrakcja” namalowany w 1998

 

TIME TO HAVE FUN!

READY FOR THE GAME?