Wojciech Pietranik (25 March 1950—) is a Polish artist and sculptor best known for his design work for coins and medals. Pietranik was born in Gdańsk, Poland, and he achieved a Masters in Sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts. He did freelance work from 1975 before moving to Darwin, Australia in 1985 to become a teacher. Three years later he moved with his family to Canberra. In 1989 he began working for the

Royal Australian Mint The Royal Australian Mint is the sole producer of all of Australia's circulating coins and is a Commonwealth Government entity operating within the portfolio of the Treasury. The Mint is situated in the Australian federal capital city of Canberr ...

and his designs have since featured on the reverse of many

Australian commemorative coins Coins of the Australian dollar are circulated with different designs depicting various anniversaries or significant Australian events, these differing coin designs being labelled Australian commemorative coins. Typically, only the 20c, 50c, $1 an ...

.Australian Coin Designers - Wojciech Pietranik "Striking Art: Lasting Impressions"
''Australian Coin Collecting Weblog''. 30 January 2010. Accessed 10 September 2011. __NOTOC__

Sydney Olympics medal

Pietranik was one of 18 artists and jewellery designers to be invited to submit a design for the

Olympic medal An Olympic medal is awarded to successful competitors at one of the Olympic Games. There are three classes of medal to be won: gold, silver, and bronze, awarded to first, second, and third place, respectively. The granting of awards is laid o ...

that would be awarded at the 2000 Summer Games, hosted in Sydney. He created a model using

plasticine Plasticine is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. Though originally a brand name for the British version of the product, it is now applied generically in English as a product category ...

and cast the finished design in plaster, sending his work to the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) along with his sketches.The fine art of victory

Powerhouse Museum The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney, the others being the historic Sydney Observatory at Observatory Hill, and the newer Museums Discovery Centre at Castle Hill. Although often de ...

. Accessed 11 September 2011. The selection committee chose Pietranik's design which, as per the brief, was based on the obverse by Giuseppe Cassioli's ''

Trionfo Trionfo () is an Italian word meaning "triumph", also "triumphal procession", and a triumphal car or float in such a procession. The classical triumphal procession for victorious generals and Emperors known as the Roman Triumph was revived for ...

'' design which had been used at every Summer Olympic Games since 1928.Greek anger at Olympic medal design
''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

''. Accessed 5 August 2011. Pietranik's version had featured the Sydney Opera House on the obverse instead of the traditional

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world t ...

but the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

decided that the Colosseum should remain. He made the changes and the test strikes were completed. When the design was formally revealed it was criticised by the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

press for featuring the Colosseum rather than the Greek

Parthenon The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considere ...

.London 2012: Olympic medals timeline

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

. Accessed 27 July 2011. Despite the criticism, SOCOG decided to continue with the design as it was, noting that there was insufficient time to complete another version and that it would be too costly. The final version of the medal measured 68 mm in diameter, 5 mm in thickness, and weighed 180 grams.Olympic Summer Games Medals From Athens 1896 to Beijing 2008
International Olympic Committee. April 2010. Accessed 10 September 2011.

Exhibition

The Royal Australian Mint celebrated Pietranik's 20 years of design and sculpture work with an exhibition in 2010. ''Striking Art Lasting Impressions'' housed collections of his coins, the Olympic medal designs, and featured Pietranik as a guest speaker on 30 January 2010. Sherry, Nick
Art Display a First for the Mint
18 January 2010. Accessed 10 September 2011.

References

External links

Wojciech Pietranik, Sculptor & Engraver, Royal Australian Mint (1950-?)
at

Museum Victoria Museums Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facili ...

Coin commemorates National Service
at ''

Australian Geographic Australian Geographic is a media business that produces the ''Australian Geographic'' magazine, ''DMag'' magazine, specialist book titles, travel guides, diaries and calendars and online media. It published editions of the Australian Encyclopa ...

''
one dollar
at the Royal Australian Mint
Mint makes our convict heritage golden
at the Royal Australian Mint {{DEFAULTSORT:Pietranik, Wojciech 1950 births Living people Polish sculptors Polish male sculptors Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk