Jerzy Duda Gracz, PORTRET OF ACTOR MICHAUSZ KWINTY, 1975

100,0 x 70,0cm - oil, canvas on the back of an author's sticker with details of the painting



Portrait of actor Tadeusz Kwinta, like the painting offered at the auction by Pawel Minkiewicz, belongs to the group of images of people professionally connected with the film and theater industry, which were part of the series Motifs and Polish Portraits, created in 1968-1979. Tadeusz Kwinta (born in 1938 in Cracow) is an important figure of the Polish theater and cabaret scene, primarily in Cracow. He worked with all the local theaters, for a decade he was an actor in Tadeusz Kantor's Cricot 2 Theater (1967-1977), he also co-founded the Piwnica Pod Baranami cabaret since its inception (1956). In addition to creating more than 250 theatrical roles, he also appeared on screen (including Monidło, 1969, directed by A. Krauze), becoming particularly famous for his role as Myszowaty in Olga Lipińska's Cabaret (1979-1981, 1984). Jerzy Duda Gracz portrayed the actor against a neutral background in the classic en trois quarts approach. A confident and elegantly dressed man, he sits proudly upright in an empire chair upholstered in red fabric. A feeling of triumph is painted in his gaze, directed directly at the viewer. The reference to the convention of the representative official portrait, aptly captures the characteristics of the model, who was at the time in the heyday of his career and full creative powers.





♣ A fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, based on the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Jerzy Duda Gracz (Częstochowa 1941 - Łagów 2004) - painter, illustrator, stage designer, educator. He received his diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow at the Department of Graphics in Katowice in 1968. In 1976-82 he was a lecturer at the academy, then a professor at the Silesian University in Katowice. He also taught at the European Academy of Arts in Warsaw (1992-2001).

His paintings are characterized by technical virtuosity and attention to detail. He practiced art in the broadly defined realist convention with dominant figure deformation and grotesque. He created a world of unmasking, using the language of journalism and allegory. He is the author of several major projects, including the "Transfiguration" plafond in the church in Toporovo (1995) and the "Golgotha of Jasna Gora" series in the Monastery of the Pauline Fathers in Czestochowa (2000/2001).
The artist has had more than 180 solo exhibitions at home and abroad (including Berlin, London, Paris, Moscow, Rome, Vienna, Florence, Düsseldorf, Chicago, New Delhi, Munich, New York and others). He participated in about 300 national exhibitions and international presentations of Polish art. He represented Poland, among others, at the XLI Art Biennale in Venice in 1984, at the XX and XXI World Art Fairs in Cologne in 1986 and 1987, and at EXPO '92 in Seville.
Jerzy Duda Player's paintings are in the collections of the National Museum in Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Gdansk, the Jagiellonian University Museum in Collegium Maius in Krakow, the Museum of the Earth of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, the art collection at Jasna Gora in Czestochowa and other district and city museums, and in private collections, including those of W. Ochman and W. Fibak; abroad - in the collections of the Uffizi in Florence, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Ghent City Museum, the "BAWAG" Foundation in Vienna and the Vatican Collection, as well as in galleries and collections in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Israel, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, Venezuela, Great Britain, Italy and Hungary.