Zdzislaw Beksinski Gallery

Beksinski videos in English

2013-11-17T22:59:00.000-08:00

Beksinski videos translated into English at last!

Video Diary of Zdzisław Beksiński. A 1987 home footage about artist's painting technique. 27:54 minutes long.

The Lines of Beksinski - video about artist's drawings. 12:24 min.

Thanks for translation to Andy Teszner.

Zdzislaw Beksinski interview

2012-02-29T08:40:00.001-08:00

Interview with Zdzislaw Beksinski published in Projekt in 1981.

PROJEKT: You have graduated as architect, so how has it come that you are a painter?
ZDZISLAW BEKSINSKI: Generally speaking, the answer is quite simple. I am incapable of working in a team. Architecture implies collective work. If I could build quite on my own and for myself, I would be an architect in the same way as I am a painter. I enjoy only individual action. I do not care on what scale. Perhaps I would be happier producing large wall paintings, but only if I owned the paint and the wall and if the deadline, the manner of execution and everything else depended entirely on myself. The case being different. I prefer small pictures that fit a room and that are painted in a crammed studio. If I accepted a commission, I would be anxious to satisfy my employer. So why take on such obligations?
P.: In the late 1950s you were an innovative photographer and produced metal reliefs, consistent with the spirit of contemporary avant-garde. So why did you give up that line a few years later and dedicated all your time to drawing and later to painting of a irrational character?
Z.B.: Questions beginning with "How did it happen..." are always the most difficult to answer. In retrospect, we tend to forget motives which prompted our decisions. For instance, I have not done a single drawing for five years, but always wanted to return to it as soon as I had finished the next two paintings which I had the fancy to finish, and then the next two. Then, for a change, I would no longer feel inclined to draw, then a year passed, and then another year and it is quite probable that I shall not draw in the coming ten years. Then, in another interview, I shall have to explain why I have given up drawing. Something similar has happened with photography. I still have all the equipment and even from time to time buy something new. Occasionally, it occurs to me that a good many things could be done mainly by means of photography, but in fact I feel more and more detached from it. There is no reason to deceive myself: I am almost sure that I shall not return to photography. It is a long time since I last did it, different stereotypes have meanwhile made their impact; finally, technological inertia acts as a drawback. In my case, painting is like running a factory: I have to provide myself with material, I have to equip my studio, etc., etc. The evolution of my vision and imagery is yet another matter. It is a very slow and fluid process, too. I would say the moment when I worked in accordance with contemporary avant-garde was the second stage in my career. I started as an expressionist, just as did many young Polish painters at that time. I did not know any of them. Nevertheless, what I did at then and what seemed to flow right from my "soul" was almost identical with what they did: silhouettes crying in the wilderness, people with heads of stone, women in labour, people caught in the acts of copulation, defecation, death, in front of a firing squad or on the gallows, in prison, towns without windows, and so on, and so forth. Stylistically, there was something of the spirit of Cwenarski and Wroblewski in it; I was even able to produce as many as five large-size paintings a day, I was absolutely uncritical, I got bored easily and saw no point in putting finishing touches to what had been very quickly daubed in distemper or charcoal on a large cardboard sheet. And yet, I think that it was only then that I have been really sincere. Or perhaps merely naive? Because later came a period of reflection and I saw that I had not the first to discover expressionism, nor the first to think that life was senseless. I even began to be a little ashamed of myself and wanted to be even more detached that I had been unrestrained in my outcry. I believe that my joining the avant-garde was, in fact, the first mask I have put on. It does not mean that I had changed my views but, ashamed that I had been a fool, I adopted a style as a mask. And I adopted a style that was in the lead. But I do not think that I owed really much to what I saw in other people's work. In fact, I have never been very interested in what others do. There must be some incidental factors which affect everyone alike and cause all the works of art created in a given period to appear fairly similar. Today, I am not surprised, that I was blamed for imitating people of whose existence I had never heard because my paintings, or rather reliefs of that period, were not much different from the average national production. Then came the third change leading towards my present work. I think that I felt rather uncomfortable in the mask I wore but, at the same time, my road towards naive sincerty was closed too, so I chose something which seemed to be another mask, though less uncomfortable. This is not the whole truth but one would need thousands of pages to explore and describe all the sources of this particular sequence of events. Even then it would not exhaust the subject.
P.: While changing the direction of your research, did you not feel that, perhaps, there was not much hope for you in the field of avant-garde and you would not be able to establish your individuality by means you had used hitherto?.
Z.B.: I think that one can fulfil oneself to the same degree in any style. When I welded my iron reliefs, I would often realize that I envied the painters of the past their neat studios which smelled of paint and I was overcome by the naive, simple need to paint at the easel. Of course, it turned out later to be as terribly hard work as the welding of iron sheets.
P.: What role of the Boguckis' Gallery play to stimulate your art? For many years the Boguckis were the sole organizers of your exhibitions.
Z.B.: With my total inability to organize career I do not think that I would have had a single exhibition had it not been for the Boguckis. I first met them in the 1950s, when I was a photographer who did a little bit of drawing and a little bit of painting. When they were mounting a photographic exhibition, a friend of mine literally dragged me to the Boguckis' flat in Cracow, together with a few other photographers. I must have had some photographs of my painter's beginnings on me - I do not remember details now. Then for a few years, I probably woried the life out of the Boguckis who were anxious to promote my work - a task as rewarding as rubbing a cat the wrong way. Like all maniacs of their own art, I was absolutely crazy about protecting my works from damage. I raised thousands of obstacles of which I am now quite ashamed, but at that time I was afraid they were irresponsible people, likely to waste all I had done, prompted by a passing fancy... I have not changed much: I still hate exhibitions.

P.: At the time of your avant-garde structural research, you made a superb relief with the motif of the cross, entitled "Malte" after Rilke. To what extent is literary inspiration responsible for the transformation in your art?
Z.B.: I cannot say much about that period in my career. If I remember rightly, the title could have easily been different and there would have been nothing wrong, at least from my point of view, if the painting had not been called "Malte". To my memory, the painting was not a fully successful materialization of visions which occurred to me during the reading of Rilke. I said "not fully successful" in the sense that I have never succeeded in painting or drawing exactly what I wanted. The result was and always is different from my intention, it always goes somewhat askew. Luckily those who see my work are not aware of it, but let me assure you that it is a terrible feeling not to have a single painting exactly as I wanted it to be. When I was ready with the relief, I named it "Malte" but I do not think it is of great consequence. I must say that I do not remember exactly how it was.
Certainly, I draw inspiration from literature, as I do from music, observation of my surroundings and all things within and without me, but the inspiration is, so to say, casual, incidental, fragmentary. For instance, three years ago I saw from a No 19 tram an old man at the stop at Unii Square in Warsaw, with a wisp of grey hair tousled by the wind. I have repeatedly tried to paint this wisp and place it in a picture, but I have never succeeded. When I finally make it (if I ever do), shall I have to entitle it in accordance with the original inspiration? What for? I have had a number of such fragmentary inspirations. I have recently dropped a painting half-way when I realized that it was almost literally my friend's drawing I had seen a few years ago, which artist is, in turn, blamed by critics for being under my influence. One can ask here who is under whose influence. I certainly did not imitate him consciously. But we are inspired by everything around us, though I do not think that it is intentional or fully realized.
Literary inspiration does not differ from other kinds of inspiration, it is on a par with them. What is more, it does not necessary have to be predictable, considering the expression of the work lying at its source. One can be inspired by an insignificant detail. For instance, from the rather strenuous reading of Hawkes's "The Lime Twig" I remember the frozen bomber at the beginning but I think it is because I had for some time felt tempted to paint old aeroplanes. Later was discouraged by a painting by Woodroffe with an old rusted bomber in the background. That is why I hate looking at other people's paintings. Anti-inspiration or being unable to paint something because it has been painted by someone else is even worse than a total lack of inspiration. Hence I was the happiest when I believed that I was the first in the world to arrive at certain ideas.
P.: You absorb contemporaneity mainly or even solely through a music of violent impact. How does it affect your artistic vision?
Z.B.: Well, let us not exaggerate. I simply like music and listen to it while working. As for the contemporary, I perceive it as probably everyone else does, though it has little effect on what I do. Nor am I convinced that music really acts as a direct inspiration. For instance, pop music does not inspire me, but acts as a stimulant, like coffee or sugar. It is pure pleasure devoid of the element of mental experience. I rrjean thing is generally true, but certainly there are exceptions to this rule as there are to all other rules. When I paint to the sound of pop music, my body moves in away which makes work more difficult, so what I do appears quite senseless. But when I turn the volume down, I feel a lack of something without which I cannot work. As regards classical music, i can really speak about something bordering on inspiration. It simply seems to me that I think about a painting in terms of a late 19th century symphonic poem. And that is why I do not care what is going to be painted; the important thing cannot be expressed in words but I do hope I am able to convey it in my best paintings. It is a kind of elation which cannot be defined but which really exists and has found its most powerful expression so far in post-Wagnerian music. This is speaking generally, for I feel it also in the works of much later composers, such as Shostakovich, Honegger or Britten.
P.: What is the reference of your art to the output of great visionaries of the past, such as Gustav Moreau, Arnold Bocklin, Odilon Redon, Blake? What can you say about the Young Poland inspiration which is quite obvious to your public?
Z.B.: The question answers itself and I do not really mind. As a rule, I am compared with Linke and Bosch and in both cases I do mind. I do not accept all of Bocklin but his "Island of the Dead" made a great, unforgettable impression on me when I was a child and this impression survived until this day.
P.: In a number of your paintings and drawings, the chief role is played by symbols, signs or accessories such as the cross, skeletons, or a skull, which have functioned in art for ages but in a way differing according to the period. You use them in a stylistic version reminiscent of modernism or, at times, Romanticism. It is a conscious intention?
Z.B.: All I want to do is to p a i n t. One cannot escape tradition. A painting as such, an object hanging on the wall, defined by its geometric shape, framed, looked at and commented upon is as a whole the result of tradition. Both contemplation of a work of art and conversation about a work of art, are elements of tradition, which have penetrated even conceptualism. Why, for Heaven's sake, should I, of my own free will, give up other traditional elements, such as the dim glimmer of varnish, composition of figures, and so on? From the very first pictures that I saw in'childhood in churches and people's homes, I have gradually built up the idea of apainting in my consciousness. And I wish to materialize this idea. It can be done through opposition, irony, in inverted commas, from a distance and through persiflage, but it can be also done literally and naively. I use my accessories for the large part quite consciously because they are, in my opinion, linked up with the idea of a painting, linked as closely as the frame or the hook at the back. And what if I use a particular sort of accessories? I have not got so many. All the greatest pictures in the world resemble oneanother and it does not really matter what they represent. Personally, I prefer painting a fantastic, irregular ruin to a contemporary regular office building, the main reason being that in the former case work does not bore me. The message of painting does not dwell in the accessories but in the unspoken. At most, accessories or rather the preference for a certain kind of accessories reflect the artist's mental disposition. But I do not paint in ordertoinitiatespiritual contact.To bequite honest, I do not really know what it is all about. I simply feel an urge to paint And whether I have too much or too little imagination... I must say that I do not think much of imagination. A tree against a misty background means more to me if it is well painted than all of Magritte.
P.: Your work is strikingly uneven. Some paintings seem to unveil a mysterious, eery world, but there seems to be even more that annoy one for their banality. Do you classify your works according to your own hierarchy?
Z.B.: I would certainly not like to annoy anyone with banality. I believe that lam not banal, but that is only my own belief. Is it not a matter of reading false symbols into what I have painted? Quite naturally, I regard some paintings as good and some as poor. Good work is the fruit of good luck or a good period. I always want to paint well but I do not always succeed in doing so. I am speaking about my own judgement. A poor painting results from the chosen method on the one hand, and the chosen object on the other. As regards the latter, I often find half-way that I do no longer believe in what I am dqing. It happens as rule with figurative scenes and I feel as if I have suddenly seen the scene I am painting through a window and had to describe it in words. lt does not apply to landscapes with which there are formal problems but this is not the subject of the question. To return to what the public may find banal: I think that what happens is misinterpretation. When one paints real objects, each of them evokes a number of simple associations but not all of these associations are apparent. For instance, the first association evoked by the word fish is not the same with everybody. What will be the first association 1 for one person, may be the seventh association for another and the hundredth for yet another. A number of real objects painted in one picture naturally prompt an interplay of first associations, according to certain fixed schemes, e.g. the symbolic scheme or surrealist scheme after Magritte style. As I have often said, in my case notional associations are only a by-product resulting from the fact that I paint real or almost real objects which enter into mutual spatial relations in a painting, though not of a notional type. Certainly, the word fish evokes a certain primary association with me as well as with others, and if I paint a fish in certain surroundings, I cannot discard the entire baggage of associations, but nor do I, by any means, use them in a creative way. If I do not paint a red fish hanging from a balloon (which is something I do avoid), I believe that it is clear to everyone that a fish is a fish and nothing else. Nevertheless, if I paint dead fish that the sea has thrown on to the sand, which apparently is as natural as a tree against a misty landscape, because the fish are presented in a most plausible situation and environment, it does not mean that I have avoided the danger of response bordering on literary banality. Incidentally, I am describing a concrete work painted a few years ago which I have grown to loathe because of the commentaries speaking about the traditional "fish on the sand" or, still worse, "a protest against the danger of ecological catastrophe". But I did not think in this way originally; what I thought was quite simple: I painted the sea and the dead fish thrown ashore. And nothing else. And if I should ever paint a nude girl with a skull in her hand, it would be neither "love and death" nor "vanitas". Banality functions only as a by-product. Oncea painting has been finished I very often realize ex post facto, from public response and opinion that high brows have read something else into my work than I have.
P.: Enthousiasts of your art argue that it reveals the depths of an extreme existential experience. Opponents see it as a masterly show of a fairly stereotype horror. How would you verbalise the message it conveys?
Z.B.: I think that all I want is pretty paintings. Simply pretty. You may easily call me a poseur, it would not be the first time that I meet with such a question and such a reaction to my answer. But I really want to paint pretty pictures. At the source of my definition of a pretty painting lies a large Baroque or 19th century altar piece or a dark landscape in an old home, hanging in company of family portraits and other landscapes; in such a company there would undoubtedly be a place for a painting by Vermeer. That does not exhaust the subject but I am quite sure that I do not want to produce horror... I would find it a very nice compliment indeed if someone told me that what I paint is morbid. I am very strongly attracted to the morbid, which does not imply that I relish the common cold; what I mean is morbidity in 19th century understanding of the term. I mean something which attracted Thomas Mann. Hence, in some respects, Wojtkiewicz is closer to me than Vermeer, but only in some respects. Perhaps the synthesis for which I astrive is quite inconsistent and unattainable...

How to varnish a painting?

2012-02-18T17:35:00.000-08:00

Varnishing

What Beksinski wrote about how to varnish a painting? These are again quotations from his correspondence:

"After about three months after completing the picture I cover it with alkyd resin in polymerized oil, ie. LIQUIN (produced by Winsor and Newton).

I wait as long as I can with this procedure, because Liquin must be rubbed very strongly with sharp nylon brush, and if the picture is fresh there is a risk of smudging some colors.

Besides, the later you put it on the painting the slower it tarnishes and penetrates into the picture.

Then it is allowed to photograph the painting, because then it has its surface compensated in terms of glossing.

After a year or better after two years, the painting can be varnished.

I did not use acrylic varnish, and besides, it is not suitable for oil paints (it's such a milk - an aqueous dispersion of acrylic resin).

Varnishing the oil painting requires skills of course, and glossy varnish in principle (if not used prematurely) do not tarnish (become mat) over time.

This does not require preparing any special potions, and I would hesitate even to use them, as the varnishes produced today are at a very good level.

The principle of good damar varnish is its no yellowing and no cracking over time and dissolving in solvents easy, so that any removing of it after years would not damage the painting itself."

And yet another quotation:

"(At the beginning of the 80s) I was experimenting with acrylic painting and carried out some tests. Acrylic painting generally is not suitable for varnishing. Pure acrylic painting is easy to distinguish by the fact that it is mat (unpolished). Although it can be seen some disruption of the opacity in terms of brush strokes, but all of these strokes are mat.

Generally problem of varnishing lies in the fact that the picture painted matt has some color proportions and qualities that would go to hell when it'll gain gloss.

Colors would become more vivid but uglier. This applies to all matte acrylics.

Varnish will not damage them materially, but will change them and could not be removed. So returning to its original state (before varnishing) won't be possible.

The so-called matt varnishes are generally crap, so I do not recommend them."

Appropriate Amazon products added to post. I don't recommend acrylic varnishes as well. Liquin can also be used as semi-gloss medium which speeds drying, improves flow and reduces brush stroke retention.

Beksinski painting technique

2011-11-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

This is the first entry in the series dealing with the Zdzislaw Beksinski's painting technique. In this section you will learn about paints the artist used. These are quotations from the artist's correspondence (which originate from the eighties of the twentieth century) with his art dealer and friend Piotr Dmochowski. Pardon me my linguistic errors of translation. More posts to come (varnishing, impregnation, priming, mediums, preparing fibreboard). Hope you find it useful.

I paint with Rowney's paints "ARTIST OIL COLOURS" and Talens' "REMBRANDT ARTIST OIL COLOURS", as well as Rowney's "CRYLA - ACRYLIC" and Talens' "REMBRANDT-ACRYLIC".
For each painting I use a certain amount of colors, do not go beyond that.
As for the brushes I use only those that I have and which I could afford. There are better but I failed to buy.
Brushes I use are almost entirely flat and hard, that is, either from pig bristles or nylon. Of course with several gradations of hardness and with various hair length. Minor trims, finishings and small brightenings paint with small number, round sable brushes. But that's just when finishing off the image in just a few places.

Paints are not divided into red or blue, but into expensive and cheap. Some red are cheap, some blue as well and the opposite too. The same applies to other colors. Next, there are whole "series" expensive or cheaper.
The most expensive paints are "artistic", the cheaper are "for artists", more cheaper are "budget", even cheaper "to study", the cheapest "for schools".
I paint with paints absolutely most expensive (as the series), but when it comes to the colors, I do not go by the price! In Polish conditions, buy them in large amounts, paints in Poland are hard to get, I get them thanks to people. [translator's note: Beksinski wrote this during communist era in Poland).

I am not guided in choosing colors with nothing but imagination and the persistence of what I do to light. Resign of certain color because it's unstable or can not be mixed with all others or threatens that will respond to hydrogen sulfide from the atmosphere or free fatty acids in linoxide.

The paints produced by good companies are divided into: "absolutely stable", "stable", "stable with limitations" and "unstable". I do not purchase at all paints that are "unstable" even though they are the prettiest. They are produced due to tradition of using certain pigments, but they slowly becoming obsolete.
I have paints "stable with limitations" but never used them (eg: white leaded, Prussian blue etc.) because they hinder the work. Can not be mixed with any other paint but only selected ones, for example they are sensitive to hydroxides etc.. I use "absolutely stable" and "stable" paints only. They are all chemically neutral and can be mixed together in any proportion. Between them both there is this difference that paints "absolutely stable" does not change under any influence over the millennia (ochers, cobalts, iron reds, etc.). However "stable" may slightly fade if they were exposed to the direct sunlight for hundreds of years, or worse, further brightened with white and then fried in the sun.
But what we now call "stable" paints had neither Leonardo nor Ucello and they're so damn resistant to light.
I checked myself red and violet cadmiums (painted in a thin layer) exposing them through a thin window for over two years in direct sunlight and nothing happened - any perceptible change.
Modern chemistry has given us better paints than old masters had. Only the painters are worse.
More damage to painted images causes darkness, especially works with the bright colors and painted with bluish and white.
Dried linseed oil - linoxide (translator's note: linoxid? - the product of oil oxidation) darkens due to the lack of light (as seen for example on the doors painted in white, if it has a calendar hanging on it). There is a conservation technique of lightening old, yellowed images due to holding them in the basement, using the quartz lamp exposure, because darkened linoxyd can get slightly lighter this way (and then darkens again, if there is no light). Because this darkening has a character of yellowing and browning after years, the paintings with brown, yellow and red colors are less exposed to visible changes, than blue, white and steel. And in any case the latter must always be kept in the light - then the changes are less visible.
All this does not apply to acrylics. Pigments are the same, but there is no yellowing. However, not everything can be paint with acrylics and it is mechanically easier to dirt and more difficult to clean. It is simply because acrylic painting is porous and dirt gets in these microscopic pores and can not be removed.

Beksinski painting detail

2011-06-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

1972; Oil on fibreboard; 100 x 122 cm

Beksinski computer graphics Part II

2011-05-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

Artist used Photoshop 5.0 + his own photographs.

Brief information about Beksinski

2011-04-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

Zdzislaw Beksinski, one of the most outstanding contemporary painters, was born on 24 February, 1929, at Sanok. He studied architecture in Cracow, but plied this profession just for a few years. He began his career of an independent artist with photography, gaining right away the great appreciation by the artistic community and the public. But photography proved to be an episode in his life. In the early 1960's, Beksinski made up his mind to focus on drawing, sculpture and also the composition of spatial metal-made paintings--reliefs. At that time, his art was not much different from the then common conventions of artistic "modernity", a reaction to the recent doctrine of socialistic realism. But people began to mention Beksinski among those who promised most.

His success began with the first major exhibition of his paintings and drawings in Warsaw in 1964. The next exhibitions came in 1967, 1970, 1972, 1977 and 1981, confirming the rank of the artist in contemporary art. Beksinski became an idol for some, a whipping boy for others, leaving no one indifferent.

As the time passed, he began to paint more and more, at the expense of drawing, where he achieved sui generis mastership and which he ultimately abandoned in the mid-1970's. He became a well-known painter, more than that: a popular and best-selling artist, although he exhibited less and less frequently — after 1981 there has been no major exhibition of his works. In 1983, Piotr Dmochowski, a lawyer who was a permanent resident in France, became interested in Beksinski's work. First, he organized for him two large exhibitions in Paris (1985, 1986), and planned others, including those in the USA. The name of the painter, which had previously been known to few enthusiasts abroad, now became popular with the general European public.

His art has been given various labels. As long as he was an avant-garde, modern artist, he fitted perfectly the 20th-century current of abstractionism. Trouble began as he abandoned the avant-garde for drawing and representational painting. Part of the artistic community and certain critics turned away from him, considering this choice a betrayal. But the general public came in greater crowds, who could identify in the paintings mysterious visions which appealed strongly to the imagination. As the years passed, he was given the label of a maker of dreams, metaphysics, and metaphore. He was charged with surrealism, psychopathy and with a wish to shock. As for him, he always pointed out that what he was keen to do was to paint fine pictures, just as this notion had been conceived in the 19th century.

He defines his work as "photography of visions". A vision is a volatile product of the subconscious and a painting serves to fix this passing event. Thus, it is not symbolic painting and contains no additional meanings, of the sort of ones "bracing up the hearts" or those "showing the evil of this world". He who demands that alleged mysteries hidden in painted scenes, people and objects should be solved, makes a fundamental mistake: these paintings reveal realities which are beyond reason and logic. The mystery contained in these visions is related, e.g., to Kafka; Beksinski himself does not renounce spiritual connections with, e.g., Boecklin or Kaspar Friedrich. He is most strongly attracted by modernism, decadence, 19th-century precision of works, which he has, at any rate, achieved in his painting. He considers music the highest form of art. He is unable to create without music.

He was a detached and independent artist. He belonged to no groups, unions and associations, including social ones. He took no part in artistic life and was not active in broadly conceived culture. Concentrated on himself and his own internal experiences, to many, he was an eccentric, recluse and egotist. But painting was for him simply a way of life, or rather, life itself. The feeling of absurdity of existence which he always had, and which he shared with the existentialists, triggers in his art everoccurring images of death, decline and disintegration. Perhaps, this is the only message which we can read from these works — we can defend ourselves from death by various ways, e.g., by painting.

Written by Tadeusz Nyczek.

Close-up of master's work from the 90s

2011-03-19T18:11:00.000-07:00

According to Poseur Execution's wish, it's a composition with implied figures and higher abstraction this time.

Acrylic painting on fibre-board. Flat white background and "carved in stone" like figures. Beginning of the 90s.

Examples of other works from this series above.

Dog-like figure with two close-ups below.

I'll take more pictures of Beksinski works in the summer this year as I'm going to visit his museum in Sanok (Poland).

Beksinski painting close-up

2011-03-03T11:15:00.000-08:00

These are three close-ups to one of Beksiński paintings from 1981. Take a look how he worked up details.

Let me know (by leaving a comment) if you want to see more close-ups of his other paintings. I've got a few more. You won't find this level of details on a reproduction of any kind.

The magician's birthday

2011-02-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

If he lived, he would turn 82 today.

Beksinski's death anniversary

2011-02-21T10:32:00.000-08:00

The sixth one.

Rest in Peace.

Henryk Waniek paintings

2011-02-12T06:59:00.000-08:00

Henryk Waniek (born 4.03.1942 in Auschwitz) is a silesian painter, writer and art reviewer. He was a good friend of Zdzislaw Beksinski.

Examples of his surreal oil paintings and drawings:

Beksinski photomontages Part I

2011-02-02T15:57:00.000-08:00

Paintings and Computer Graphics from the 1990s
Beksinski's paintings have grown less representational over the years and now seem almost abstract in nature. Color and texture and now the proncipal themes in themselves. Not so odd, as the artist began his career in the abstract realm. His computer art, however, continued the lineage of fantastic realism, and the artist never allows the technology to get in the way of that he is attempting to convey creatively.

Last paintings of Beksinski

2011-01-11T06:33:00.000-08:00

Below are the works Beksiński painted in 2004, a year before he was killed.

His apartment and works waiting to be framed.

Below are the works he painted in 2005 prior to his death on 21st of February 2005.

His last painting.

Now on display at the Historical Museum in Sanok, Poland.

Beksinski in his studio

2010-12-12T03:22:00.000-08:00

Beksinski with his friend Piotr Dmochowski.

Three pictures in a great quality below. Click on the images to enlarge.

Zdzislaw Beksinski, the painter

2010-11-29T13:20:00.000-08:00

Beksiński at the age of 74.

Best Beksinski's works from 1986 - 1988

2010-10-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

That should be all I found. Years 1986 - 1988 end Beksinski's fantasy period. He painted more abstract compositions later.

Zdzislaw Beksinski paintings from 1985

2010-10-10T14:53:00.000-07:00

1984 Beksinski biggest art gallery

2010-10-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Gallery of the year 1983

2010-10-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

The 1982's surreal masterpieces

2010-10-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

His dark artworks from 1981

2010-10-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Beksinski paintings from 1980

2010-10-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

How and what Beksinski painted in 1979?

2010-07-29T13:49:00.000-07:00

Look at his incredible painting technique and enjoy the ride in dark realms of fantasy.

Master's works from 1978

2010-07-03T02:39:00.000-07:00

Here we go again with Beksinski paintings.

You can click every picture to enlarge.