Jan Dobkowski (b. 1942, Lomza), "Sad World," 1982

Source
private collection, Warsaw (gift from the artist)

Biography
Painter and printmaker. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw from 1962-68 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 took part 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.