Krzysztof Skórczewski. A self-portrait. The artist’s 70th birthday

Krzysztof Skórczewski is one of the foremost Polish graphic artists. He has become famous mainly for his numerous copper engravings, although he received his first awards and distinctions for his linocuts. The turning point in the artist’s career came in 1976, when he not only abandoned his earlier technique and style but also radically changed his working methods, creating a new graphic narration and gaining a deeper insight into his own personality. Large-format, almost abstract linocuts had been replaced with miniature copper engraving, a medium in which, intent on his work, he realized his great narrations (The Tower of Babel, The Ark, The Flood). However, the choice of the Great Theme does not serve the needs for a contemporary morality play. It is, above all, the artist’s confrontation with his own ego. Skórczewski ‘peregrinates in the meanders of his personal architecture as in a labyrinth of the subconscious […] in the copper plate and the integrated circuits of drawing he sees his countenance […]. This dialogue between the artist and the medium assigned to him, [the dialogue of] the reciprocal, one would like to say, fascination, has developed for several decades. Imperceptibly to those less initiated, step by step he has been drawing a self-portrait.’ The artist is well known not only among connoisseurs and professionals. With his creations, representing the highest artistic quality, he has won for his graphic works a broad audience and has attracted the interest of new media. Moreover, his art intrigues younger generations who find in it something which the artist probably never expected – the poetry of ‘fantasy’.

Krzysztof Skórczewski is one of the foremost Polish graphic artists. He has become famous mainly for his numerous copper engravings, although he received his first awards and distinctions for his linocuts. The turning point in the artist’s career came in 1976, when he not only abandoned his earlier technique and style but also radically changed his working methods, creating a new graphic narration and gaining a deeper insight into his own personality. Large-format, almost abstract linocuts had been replaced with miniature copper engraving, a medium in which, intent on his work, he realized his great narrations (The Tower of Babel, The Ark, The Flood). However, the choice of the Great Theme does not serve the needs for a contemporary morality play. It is, above all, the artist’s confrontation with his own ego. Skórczewski ‘peregrinates in the meanders of his personal architecture as in a labyrinth of the subconscious […] in the copper plate and the integrated circuits of drawing he sees his countenance […]. This dialogue between the artist and the medium assigned to him, [the dialogue of] the reciprocal, one would like to say, fascination, has developed for several decades. Imperceptibly to those less initiated, step by step he has been drawing a self-portrait.’ The artist is well known not only among connoisseurs and professionals. With his creations, representing the highest artistic quality, he has won for his graphic works a broad audience and has attracted the interest of new media. Moreover, his art intrigues younger generations who find in it something which the artist probably never expected – the poetry of ‘fantasy’.