Jacek SIENICKI (1928-2000), Meat

oil, canvas; 60 x 81.5 cm;
On the reverse on the painter's loom number: 749 (in marker);
on the skirting board a printed sticker with the registration number from the artist's legacy: 749.

Jacek Sienicki was a graduate of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts in Artur Nacht Samborski's studio, and later a close associate of his. He made his debut in 1955, during a national exhibition at the Warsaw Arsenal - "Against War - Against Fascism." The 1970s, at the same time the time when the offered canvas was created, was a period of exceptionally intensive creative work of the artist, thanks to which he had the opportunity to rent his own studio in the Chomiczówka housing estate. In 1974, Sienicki received the C. K. Norwid Award, given to the painter for a presentation shown at the Zachęta Gallery in Warsaw. In 1975, he took over the painting studio at his alma mater after Prof. Marek Bylin. A characteristic feature in Jacek Sienicki's work is taking up one subject, several times, working in cycles of paintings. Cycles of canvases, the repeated elaboration of similar subjects such as plants, pots, dishes, pieces of meat, the view from the window, are probably a search for the right form and color, because, after all, Sienicki's painting was strongly associated with the trend of colorism, from which his mentor Nacht Samborski also originated. The artist himself recalls about his paintings: "One of my colleagues called my work portraying objects. I portray the interiors of the studio and I portray myself, I portray flowers, all those things that I paint, in a very close relationship with nature [...]. Of course, I also hope that I am primarily portraying myself. I give a stigma to the painting, a stigma stemming from me. From my entire life story, my illnesses, experiences, joys and sorrows."
(Jacek Sienicki. Paintings and Works on Paper, Henryk Gallery, Krakow 2009).
Source: jaceksienicki.pl; press materials for the exhibition at Kordegarda, June-July 2017 (kordegarda.org/en/exhibition/139610).