BIOGRAPHY
(by Piotr Dmochowski)
True to the image of his work, Beksinski is a secluded man.
He does not appear in public, and does not exhibit his paintings.
When museums of collectors exhibit them his does not show up.
He works on his paintings twelve hours a day
against a background of classical music.
They are always painted on hardboard, signed on the back, and they bear no titles.
He was born on February 24th 1929 in Sanok, a small town near the
south-east border of Poland. His father was a surveyor,
his grandfather a building contractor, and his great-grandfather Mathieu,
an insurgent of 1863, was the founder of a wagon factory.
Under the German Occupation Beksinski continued his
studies at a secondary level, first in a school of commerce,
then in a clandestine highschool.
in 1947, after the liberation, he entered the Faculty of Architecture in the
Mines and Steelworks Academy in Cracow under pressure from his father.
In 1951 he married Miss Sophie Stankiewicz,
and in 1952 he obtained his degree in architecture.
Due to the obligation of work which was at that time imposed on young graduates,
he started working in a State building enterprise
where he supervised the building lots.
Although he had been drawing since his early childhood, he applied
himself to it seriously in 1953. He also concentrated on
painting, photography and sculpture, and thus prepared his way
out of a profession which he disliked.
In 1958 his only child, Thomas, was born.
In the same year his first exhibition of plastic works, and
especially abstract relief, was held in Poznan. At that time
he was still a member of the Union of Polish Artist-
Photographers and he took part in numerous exhibitions of
photography in Poland and abroad.
In 1960 he abandoned photography and in his plastic works broke
away from the avant-garde. This break was felt by some as an
actor treason, since his early creation had aroused much hope
among the partisans of abstract art. But is was also this step
towards fantasy expressionism, noted during the exhibition of
1972 organized by Mr. and Mrs. Bogucki in the "Contemporary"
gallery in Warsaw, that was to make him known to a wider
public. The polemic aroused by his painting reached its climax
in 1975 when after a poll organised by art critics he was
declared "the best painter in the thirty years of the People's
Republic of Poland" thanks to the votes of certain
participants who gave him almost all their points, while
others refused to give him even one...
In 1977 he left Sanok and moved to Warsaw only to isolate himself
from the world even more radically because of the
inconvenience arising from the celebrity he now had in his
home town. When he moved into the Polish capital he hoped to
mingle in the anonymous crowds of a big metropolis. Despite
the curiousity he arouses, he refuses to take part in any
manifestations and accepts neither awards nor medals. He has
practically ceased to exhibit, receives only one or two
journalists a year, when he grants them an interview which
does not touch upon current events.
A charismatic personality and a man with a profound spirit,
Beksinski has never left Poland, doesn't speak any foreign
language and has never been a member of any ideological group;
he hates and despises politics.
by Piotr Dmochowski
