Marek Szczęsny (born 30 July 1939) is a Polish contemporary painter.
He has participated in more than thirty solo and group exhibitions throughout Europe and the US.
He currently lives and works in
Paris.
Early life
Marek Szczęsny was born in
Radom,
Poland, on 30 July 1939.
Szczęsny was born in the year of the outbreak of
WWII and spent his earlier life in occupied and post-war Poland.
Wanting to become an artist, Marek took private art lessons and in the late 1950s moved to
Gdańsk
Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...
, where he began attending lectures at the State
Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.
In the 1960s he began associating with a group of artists from the Żak - a student cultural club in Gdańsk.
During this time he met the Polish painter
Tadeusz Brzozowski
Tadeusz Brzozowski (October 21, 1749February 5, 1820) was a Polish scholar, teacher, administrator and a Jesuit priest. Having secured its continuity during the suppression of the Society until its restoration, he was elected twentieth Superior ...
.
In 1967 Szczęsny had his debut exhibition at Żak.
Thanks to Brzozowski the commission at the
Polish Ministry of Culture
Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego) is a governmental administration office concerned with various aspects of Polish culture. It was formed on 31 October 200 ...
granted Szczęsny the status of artist and membership to the
Association of Polish Visual Artists.
Career
In the 1970s, Marek Szczęsny left Gdańsk and moved to
Zakopane.
For four years he was a member of the “
GOPR” - the mountain rescue team specializing in winter rescue - in the
Tatras, but continued to draw.
Between 1970 and 1978 he exhibited his works in both group and solo exhibitions across Poland, Italy and Spain.
It would be another 12 years before Szczęsny exhibited in Poland again (in 1991 as part of the group exhibition ‘Jesteśmy’ at
Zachęta National Gallery of Art
The Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Polish: ''Zachęta Narodowa Galeria Sztuki'') is a contemporary art museum in the center of Warsaw, Poland. The Gallery's chief purpose is to present and support Polish contemporary art and artists. With numero ...
, Poland).
In 1978 Szczęsny left Poland for Paris and two years later was granted a
Ford Foundation scholarship in 1980.
At this time Szczęsny began to exhibit his work regularly in Europe.
From 2003 he had individual exhibitions in museums in France and Poland and was included in the exhibition “Polish Artists of the Twentieth Century” in France.
[ In 2008 he had a solo exhibition entitled “Gravitation” at the ]Foksal Gallery The Foksal Gallery or Galeria Foksal is a non-commercial gallery space in Warsaw, Poland established in 1966, that shows works by contemporary avant-garde artists.
History
The Foksal Gallery was founded in 1966 by a group of Polish art critics and ...
in Warsaw.Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation The Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation was established in 1976. It is an American nonprofit organization that provides funding for the arts.
History
The Gottlieb Foundation was established after Adolph Gottlieb’s death in 1974. Esther Gottlie ...
in New York and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska.
Exhibitions
* 30 January - 13 March 2015, Marek Szczęsny, l’étrangère
* 23 Jun 2016 – 31 Jul 2016, Layered Narratives: Collage/Photomontage/Print, l'étrangère
References
External links
Official site
Financial Times, 21/22 December 2014
Marek Szczęsny - artsy.net
{{DEFAULTSORT:Szczęsny, Marek
1939 births
Living people
Polish contemporary painters
Polish contemporary artists