Author: Jerzy Duda-Gracz
Title: Polish Lancer (2004)
Technique: watercolor, gouache, paper
Dimensions with passe-partout: 51.5 x 32.7 cm
Dimensions with frame: 82 x 63.5 cm
Signed and dated l.d.: "J. Duda-G ‧ 1431/2004 ‧"
Description of work:
Jerzy Duda-Gracz - painter, illustrator, stage designer, professor of fine arts and university lecturer. He was primarily known for his satirical view of the reality around him. Jerzy Duda-Gracz's paintings aroused emotions due to the strong distortions of his figures, usually depicted in a grotesque and mocking manner, in order to literally stigmatize human weaknesses, vices, fears and complexes. The painter was also keen on social and political themes, which he commented on aptly and sharply.
The presented work, depicting a lancer and a woman, seems on the surface to be a sultry and solemn shot, showing some kind of tribute or bow to the soldier made by an old woman. In fact, however, it is a transposition of a well-known painting motif in Polish art, which the artist treated in a satirical and metaphorical manner. The silhouettes of the two figures were strongly differentiated. The hunchbacked, bent woman, barely able to stand on her flimsy legs, was juxtaposed by the painter with the elongated body of an upright soldier. The verticality set by the male figure contrasts with the sigmoidal female figure. The hierarchical arrangement allows the lancer to tower over the old woman. In a patriotic interpretation, he may represent the personification of strength and chivalrous ideals lavished in traditional painting, while she represents weakness and oppression, definitely more appropriate for a narrative about a plundered and enslaved homeland. The juxtaposition of these two figures could also have been a kind of satirical commentary referring to the romanticized moral motif popularized in Polish painting, depicting a lancer and a girl.
The work, done in watercolor, is painted freely and sketchily in bright, cool colors. Warm patches of yellow and orange over the heads of the figures act as accents to catch the viewer's eye. The unfinished silhouettes of the figures blur in the background, forming an understated, open, expressive composition.
A biography of Jerzy Duda-Gracz is available on the Krakow Auction House website [SEE].
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