Jerzy Wroński

About artist

Born
1930
Died
29.06.2016

Born in Ciechanki in the region of Lublin in 1930, died in 2016. From 1950 to 1956 he studied at the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.
Whilst at the Academy he and his friends founded the so-called Nowohucka Group, whose members were the pioneers of matter painting in the city Kraków. All of them were later admitted to the Kraków Group Art Association. Jerzy Wroński served as its President from 1979 to 1995. Previously, for several terms he had also served as a member of the Board of the Kraków Branch of the Polish Association of Visual Artists and the Arts Council of the Section of Painting of the Association's Central Board.
He is an outstanding teacher and a long time professor at the Cieszyn Branch of Silesian University. He has worked as a teacher since 1960. He started his teaching career in Kraków and later moved to Lublin to teach at the University of Maria Curie-Skłodowska. Since 1975 he has worked at the Cieszyn Branch of Silesian University.
Jerzy Wroński is an artist who faithfully follows the avant-garde tradition of formal searches interlaced with surreal layers.
Initially he emulated the style of matter painting. However, in the 1980s he radically changed his artistic inclinations. He turned to photography directing his attention to light as another means of artistic expression (in addition to water and fire). He began to create "metamorphic photographs" later referred to as “smoke prints”. They are a kind of "lens-free photography” where images are created using a flame to deposit soot particles on a glass photographic plate moistened with water. The final result is to some extent random. He comments on his creations by saying that "smoke prints" help him "find the right balance between the creative power of nature and the role that is attributable to the artist himself".
In 2010, the BWA Gallery of Contemporary Art in Katowice and Galeria Centrum of Nowa Huta Cultural Centre in collaboration with the Otwarta Pracownia Association in Kraków organized a retrospective exhibition of works by Jerzy Wroński, which was accompanied by a monographic publication containing works from all periods of his creative career.

Works

Jerzy Wroński

Doctor Kopeć's Flight

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