Dimensions: 147 x 147 cm
signed, dated and described on the reverse: 'Jan Dobkowski | FROM THE CYCLE "KIĘŻYC I MY CZEREŚNIA X" 2010 | ACRYL | 147 cm x 147 cm'.
Origin
private collection, Poland
Exhibited
Jan Dobkowski "The moon and my cherry", Very White Gallery, Warsaw, 8.05-7.06.2013
Literature
Magdalena Sołtys, The moon, Jan Dobkowski and his cherry, "Arttak", no. 5, 2013, p. 50 (il.).
Biography
Painter and graphic artist. From 1962-68 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw at the Faculty of Painting in the studios of Prof. Juliusz Studnicki and Prof. Jan Cybis. He was a co-founder (with Jerzy Jurry Zieliński) of the "Neo-Neo" group (1967-1970). Illustrator of Guillaume Apollinaire's poems "Zwierzyniec or the Dawn of Orpheus" (1963). In 1968 Dobkowski participated in the exhibition "Secession-Secession?" at the Contemporary Gallery in Warsaw, which generated great interest in the media and among critics. Following his success at this exhibition, his paintings were included in the prestigious presentation "Polish Contemporary Painting. Sources and Explorations" in Paris. Soon the Guggenheim Museum in New York also purchased for its collection his canvas "Double Girl" (1968), Dobkowski's first red and green painting. A whole series of paintings in this color scheme was created a year later, painted in a unified format of 200 x 150 cm. The green backgrounds featured red silhouettes of male and female figures in various situations, the latter usually with lush, caricatured shapes. Women with multiple breasts in apple or pear forms had a powerful charge of eroticism and sensuality. Some of the forms in Dobkowski's paintings transformed seamlessly into others, a woman's breast becoming a generous apple, her heart a spermatic cord, and her spine and ribs an organic, flabby structure. Green suggested nature, vigorous vitality, life. These paintings became the starting point for many spatial actions and subsequent series of paintings. During martial law, he participated in independent culture actions. In 1972, he was a scholarship recipient of the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York. Winner of awards, including: Cyprian Kamil Norwid Critic's Award (1978); Jan Cybis Award (1994) for lifetime achievement.
