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POLISH ART is not well represented in the West (especially in the US). Why?


rychlik  41 | 372  
28 Oct 2010 /  #1
One question: why is Polish art not very well represented in the West? Especially in N.America. There's too much emphasis on Anglo, French, Dutch and German artists (photographers and painters). Is it a form of discrimination? I think it might be.

Separate issue- if one wants to go into the photography business in Poland, is it easy? I would love to contribute something to Polish art culture.
OP rychlik  41 | 372  
29 Oct 2010 /  #3
Thats it??
zetigrek  
29 Oct 2010 /  #4
That is you must read the quote I've posted and search for further informations on yourself.

Why do you think that Polish art is absent in America?
Amathyst  19 | 2700  
29 Oct 2010 /  #5
One question: why is Polish art not very well represented in the West? Especially in N.America. There's too much emphasis on Anglo, French, Dutch and German artists (photographers and painters). Is it a form of discrimination? I think it might be.

You forgot Italian and Spanish.

It might because they have more exposure? Their style was preferred?

Wilhelm Sasnal
Igor Mitoraj
Magdalena Abakanowicz
Rafał Olbiński

are very well represented.

I think the point he was trying to make is that they are not on the tip of the tongue of all Europeans like Picaso, Van Gough, Botticelli, da Vinci, even a 5 year old could point one of their paintings out.

I did actually create a threat about Polish art a little while ago but it gain hardly any interest at all.

polishforums.com/history/felix-topolski-wonderful-discovery-47123/
zetigrek  
29 Oct 2010 /  #6
I think the point he was trying to make is that they are not on the tip of the tongue of all Europeans like Picasso, Van Gough, Botticelli, da Vinci, even a 5 year old could point one of their paintings out.

But Tamara £empicka is ;)

I did actually create a threat about Polish art a little while ago but it gain hardly any interest at all.
Felix Topolski - what a wonderful discovery (for me)

There was nice thread by McCoy which I contributed a lot.

https://polishforums.com/life/slavic-art-30372/

I think you may like Witkacy as well

..................................................................

Btw if it goes for photography artists Ryszard Horowitz (a Polish Jewish photographer and computer graphic) is well known in UniStates. I've just read on wiki interesting note that he was one of the rescued by... Oscar Schindler!
Trevek  25 | 1699  
29 Oct 2010 /  #8
they are not on the tip of the tongue of all Europeans

Maybe most West Europeans can't get their tongues around the Polish names, so they can't remember their names.
A J  4 | 1075  
29 Oct 2010 /  #9
You know why something simple as this is art? Because these aren't old photographs, but oil-paintings. (Dutch ragpicker and painter, Jopie Huisman.)

:)
zetigrek  
29 Oct 2010 /  #10
We have something better AJ. A guy who actually paints... numbers!!!!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Opa%C5%82ka
A J  4 | 1075  
29 Oct 2010 /  #11
We have something better AJ.

Yes you do, but it's not him.

;)

A guy who actually paints... numbers!!!!

Imaginative! I can probably tell why he's so obsessed with numbers. I mean, I keep having these dreams about such digits on my bank account.

xD
zetigrek  
29 Oct 2010 /  #12
I mean, I keep having these dreams about such digits on my bank account.

well... he don't have to dream about it. Those digits really change into money
A J  4 | 1075  
29 Oct 2010 /  #13
I'm willing to bet that if I painted the same rubbish that it wouldn't. I still think it's all about having uppity friends and acquaintances in the art-circuit. I wanted to go to the Rietveld Academy when I was young, and I definitely had a talent for drawing and painting, but alas, the tuition fees were much too high for my family.

:S

Not fair!
sobieski  106 | 2111  
29 Oct 2010 /  #14
Which Polish art? As compared to Rubens, Van Eyck, Jordaens, Breughel ? Get a life.
joepilsudski  26 | 1387  
30 Oct 2010 /  #15
Jews control the 'art business' in America and much of the West...Notice, I say business...Most 'art' they sell or promote is absolute garbage..Jewish art is mostly, as they would say, 'dreck'...In fact, most modern visual art is sh**...Please alert me as to any worthwhile Polish visual artists, either in USA or elsewhere....Please.

One very good artist from Poland in the last century was a Jew...His name is Szyk.
southern  73 | 7059  
30 Oct 2010 /  #16
Generally,Slavic art is completely ignored in the West.In CR and Poland I saw interesting paintings and there are lots of good Russian painters.
A J  4 | 1075  
30 Oct 2010 /  #17
tsh12702/img/escher_waterfall.jpg

Anything similar?

:)
zetigrek  
30 Oct 2010 /  #18
Which Polish art? As compared to Rubens, Van Eyck, Jordaens, Breughel ? Get a life.

I think that Jacek Malczewski or Gierymsky brothers art is second to none. Why we value Rubens, Rafaello, Jacques-Louis David but not Jan Matejko? Is the same boring perfect realism...

Please alert me as to any worthwhile Polish visual artists, either in USA or elsewhere....Please.

I've already alerted you but you are a plastic pole which haven't even bothered to learn polish...

One very good artist from Poland in the last century was a Jew...His name is Szyk.

who?

Generally,Slavic art is completely ignored in the West.In CR and Poland I saw interesting paintings and there are lots of good Russian painters.

Russian artist ceratinly are not ignored in the West.

It's just that you all are not intrested in art and only few artist you could reconize are: Picasso, Da Vinci, Dali as those 3 artists are the favourite subject of trashy documents on discovery channel.
urszula  1 | 253  
30 Oct 2010 /  #19
Is it a form of discrimination? I think it might be.

Maybe coz there ain't any impressionistic, worthwhile Polish artists?
zetigrek  
30 Oct 2010 /  #20
what if there are? Urszula who are you and why you are so negative about Poland (not only in this comment but also many comments by you)?
southern  73 | 7059  
30 Oct 2010 /  #21
El Greco the biggest artist of all times was of course Greek(from Creta)
Paulina  16 | 4338  
30 Oct 2010 /  #22
One question: why is Polish art not very well represented in the West?

You mean now or in the past?

I think usually rich countries become centres of art. Artists need money too, somebody have to pay them for their pictures - those people or institutions were called patrons, I think. Take Italian painters for example. Their patrons were not only rich noble families but also powerful Vatican (big money, big scale, big prestige, big fame). Michelangelo made the statue of David for the consuls of the Guild of Wool in Florence. He was commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling by the Pope Julius II. This famous Pietà was commissioned for the French cardinal Jean de Billheres:

The same is with Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio and many others.
Artists are drawn to places where other artists already are, where art is developing and money are paid.

Pablo Picasso was Spanish, not French. He came to Paris and he became famous. Marc Chagall (Мойша Захарович Шагалов) was a Belarusian Jew born in Russia (now Belarus). He got a scholarship and thanks to this could come to Paris. Vincent van Gogh came to France from Netherlands.

El Greco was Greek not Spanish. First he came to Italy, than to Spain and he stayed in Spain where he painted for the Catholic Church which was trying to regain its position in Spain.

I would say that, more or less (at least judging by the most famous names and "schools" of art and my limited knowledge):

The Renaissance was owned by Italy, The Netherlands.
Baroque - Italy, Spain, France a bit too.
Romanticism - Germany
Classicism - France
Art Nouveau - France, Austria, Spain
and generally first half of 20th century - France, Spain in a lesser degree (?)
part of the first half and other half of 20th century - America (Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock)

As for the UK - I remember Thomas Gainsborough and I know about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but I doubt a 5 year old outside the UK could point one of their paintings out ;)

Is it a form of discrimination? I think it might be.

I don't think so... I guess the West is focused on itself to some degree. But Polish artists weren't kicked out of the galleries or museums as far as I know ;)

There are paintings of Olga Boznańska (who moved from Poland to Austria and then to Paris, I think) in Musée d'Orsay:

Some of her paintings:

krakow.gazeta.pl/krakow/5,35815,2278681.html
klp.pl/admin-malarstwo/images/grafiki/5945.jpg
klp.pl/admin-malarstwo/images/grafiki/5967.jpg

They're rather sad.

A Russian lady that has been to Paris lately and visited this museum wrote me that she remembered a very sad sculpture by an artist with a Polish name.

It's called "La nostalgie du pauvre":

It was made by Bolesław Biegas:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boles%C5%82aw_Biegas
I've been to Musée d'Orsay years ago so I can't say right now if there are more Polish artists there.
Polonius3  980 | 12275  
30 Oct 2010 /  #23
I'm no art expert, so I wonder whether those in the know would find anything original or merely imtiative amongst the Matejkos, Malczewskis, Grottgers, Kossaks, Stykas and others. Wyspiański would seem to have some potential for wider recognition.
joepilsudski  26 | 1387  
30 Oct 2010 /  #24
've already alerted you but you are a plastic pole which haven't even bothered to learn polish...

Thank you for your generous remarks, as they seem right in line with your pretensions...As you get older, who will hopefully learn to respect a person asking an honest question.

Now Alexander Gierymski is quite good, a realist but with a muted, impressionistic type of style...He worked in watercolors also...Matejko has a classic realistic style to his work, but the realism is in the sense that the human figures and surroundings he paints are not distorted...His themes are quite grand, outlining his impressions of history, mythology and religious matters...Both are certainly giants, but this work is rarely displayed in the West, let alone USA.

When I ask about artists, I mean current, contemporary Polish artists...Who do you like?...Who has something of interest to convey?

Here is work by Arthur Szyk, displaying an 'Orientalist' sensibility, illustrating Jewish oral history being transmitted...He also did 'social realist' work in the Communist 'poster mode', but of a high quality, with irony.

as
zetigrek  
30 Oct 2010 /  #25
Who has something of interest to convey?

read post #2.

About more polish art visit thread linked in post #6.

Both are certainly giants, but this work is rarely displayed in the West, let alone USA.

Maybe because they are boring as hell.
Polish symbolist are intresting though. My all time favorite is Jacek Malczewski.

Who do you like?

Malczewskis

Malczewski is really grat symbolist. Rest you have mentioned are boring realists. I wonder if you ever seen Jacek Malczewski painting on your own eyes. They are really awsome! Those vivid colors...

For other polish symbolists (besides Wyspiański) look:

Edward Okuń "Wojna i my"... I love this painting!

Dziwny ogród

Józef Mehoffer "Dziwny ogród"

Witkacy i also very intresting:

witkacy

Wróblewski is more modern kind of artists and really great!
Murdered Tomasz Beksiński was world wide known fantasy artist (I liked his art when I was teen but now I consider it bit cheesy... the same thing with Wojciech Siudmak)

Polish poster school is world wide famouse which we should remember about.

As I mentioned before there is alredy a picture thread about polish (actually slavic) artists, so please visit this thread and don't force me to repost those pics:

polishforums.com/life/slavic-art-30372/

And also we should remember we actually have a Picasso-fame class artist. Tamara £empicka was half polish and very detached to her polish roots. Tamara is really in fashion now, I see everywhere poster, reproductions, even notebooks with her paintings on the cover!

For those who didn't know:

Symptomatic of a shift , with which we deal in recent years - which apparently marked the " effect Sasnal " , which consisted of gaining a leading position on the international scene by the artist with a deep province - can be described as a departure from the local context of art created in Central Europe in the direction of production without departing from the formal and semantic of the cosmopolitan standards of Western art . At the same time it is not a typical peripheral cultures (including Polish ) imitation of delay provided from the center of patterns , but rather on the grounds of the group endowed with the most advanced artists of the avant-garde sensibility , delineating the boundaries of the existing language in the world of contemporary art.

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