Agnieszka Jankowska‑Marzec
‘ACCURSED’ OR ABSENT? CRITICS TOWARDS THE WORKS OF JERZY DUDA-GRACZ

Looking for the right adjective to describe the current status of Jerzy Duda-Gracz, I have used a term loaded, perhaps, with excess drama: ‘accursed’. However, I find it justified to some extent: the work of the artist who passed away in 2004 remains not only relegated to the margins of interest of Polish art criticism but also assessed rather harshly by it. As a matter of fact, the artist ceased to enjoy good reviews as early as the second half of the 1990s. Two then-young critics, Łukasz Gorczyca and Michał Kaczyński, founders of the ‘Raster’ magazine, picked Duda-Gracz to pieces in the text titled Słowniczek artystyczny Rastra (Raster’s Concise Art Dictionary), describing the world of Polish art of the late 20th century. The artist was included among the creators working in the so-called arte polo current, which they defined as ‘a genre in contemporary Polish art that has a specificity similar to disco polo in music. Purely artistic values are replaced by commercial and entertainment ones in it. However, unlike disco polo, it is popular even among social elites: from unsophisticated audiences to certain circles of collectors, gallerists and critics. ARTE POLO exhibitions are also organised – and paid for with taxpayers’ money – by some state museums and galleries (e.g., Duda-Gracz exhibitions at the Silesian Museum in Katowice or the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw). (…) The greatest ARTE POLO sharks include such tycoons as the aforementioned Jerzy Duda-Gracz and Zdzisław Beksiński, whose activities cannot, in principle, be described as art. Duda-Gracz produces caricature paintings in dun hues, reminiscent of poor-quality illustrations for fairy tales. According to the author, the protagonists of these paintings are provincial and non-upper-class types; however, it is difficult to understand what these eye-nagging visions have to do with our reality and why they amuse the Polish audience so much. The record-breaking prices of Duda-Gracz paintings attained at auctions in 1996: PLN 45,000 for a large, oil-based Tatra Fantasy, and PLN 27,000 for The Stroll, testify to the degree of the amusement. Duda-Gracz likes to claim the Polishness (arte-Polishness?) of his paintings, and the New Rich audience apparently believes that the caricatures painted in oil are absolutely the best thing Polish painters can produce.’¹ This staunchly negative assessment of Duda Gracz’s creative output contradicted his image in the criticism of the previous decades. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was one of the most appreciated Polish artists who enjoyed, at the same time, great popularity among a wide audience of art lovers, and ‘the resonance generated by his exhibitions – as Stach Szabłowski wrote – is easier to compare with the reception of important films or generational bestsellers than with phenomena in the field of visual arts. It would also be difficult to find an artist equally vividly discussed in the PRL (communist state-owned– transl.) media.’² What was, then, the reason why Jerzy Duda-Gracz became almost a persona non grata in the Polish art world? The answer is neither easy nor clear-cut; a combination of various factors came into play. The selection of critical texts from the last thirty years of the past century, devoted to the work of Duda-Gracz, presented below, may allow a better understanding of his case; contemporary artists’ opinions and two texts by leading Polish critics, Jakub Banasiak and Stach Szabłowski, analysing his phenomenon from the perspective of the second decade of the 21st century, will also be quoted.

The 1970s can be safely described as the ‘golden decade’ in the work of Jerzy Duda-Gracz. Born in 1941 in Częstochowa, he obtained a diploma at the Faculty of Graphic Arts of the Katowice branch of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, with which he later became associated as a drawing and painting teacher in 1976–1982.³ He made his debut in 1970 with an ‘exhibition of paintings and etchings’ (together with Tadeusz Siara) in the Katowice Gallery, followed by numerous collective exhibitions every year (with a break in 1975–1982, when he decided to have only solo exhibitions). The artist also cooperated as a graphic designer with publishing houses and magazines, trying his hand as a set designer in local Polish Television studios as well. He was quickly noticed by the critics, received numerous awards and distinctions, high state awards, and even a film devoted to his work, made by TVP and awarded at the 9th National Review of Films about Art (1976).⁴

He was mentioned by renowned critics in industry magazines as well as journalists writing short notes about his subsequent exhibitions for the local press; as a result, twelve years after graduation, not only did he have under his belt nineteen solo exhibitions, but also over one hundred and sixty texts and mentions devoted to them.⁵ Widespread admiration was aroused especially by the artist’s skills; both their level: ‘perfidiously virtuoso-level technique’⁶ and their character: ‘old-time, traditional’. Maria Podolska was one of the first to rave over the ‘juiciness of colour’ and ‘smoothness of texture’⁷ of his canvases on the columns of the Katowice-based ‘Poglądy’ magazine, while Wojciech Guyski, in ‘Projekt’, called Duda-Gracz a ‘great colourist’,⁸ underlining that the shift of the colour solution towards one tone, applied sometimes by the artist, was intended to emphasise the distance towards tradition, which the artist respects but also plays with. Opened in December 1978, the artist’s solo exhibition in Warsaw’s Kordegarda (an exhibition which then set off on a tour of Poland, to visit fourteen cities) resulted in a flood of reviews that appreciated the ‘value transitions of warm colours’ (Nawojka Cieślińska)⁹ or the ‘transparency of glaze effects’ (Wojciech Skrodzki).¹⁰ Opinions on the merits of his works emphasised their connection with the history of art, in particular inspirations taken from the 16th-century Flemish painters. That reading of stylistic affinities was also fostered by the artist himself who suggested clues to critics, declaring that he was closest to the tradition of ‘work well done. Like Breughel’s, Bosch’s, and Vermeer’s to begin with (…)’.¹¹ In the reviews, critics tried to outdo one another finding alleged similarities between Duda-Gracz and artists working in different epochs and environments, from the Renaissance Venetians (including Veronese) to Goya to artists from the German circle of Neue Sachlichkeit, Georg Grosz, or from the home ground: Zygmunt Waliszewski and Bronisław Wojciech Linke.¹² However, their prevailing belief was that the strongest ties connected the Silesian artist with the aforementioned Dutch circles, not only because of the specific ‘mannerism’ of his works, but also their iconography (pastiches of entire canvases by old masters); a passion for a caricatured representation of a figure, hearty sense of humour and, consequently, the creation of a separate ‘breed’ of people crowding his canvases. Simultaneously, critics found him to be capable of combining seemingly contradictory currents and tendencies: the baggage of old art, the then-fashionable pop aesthetics allied with the fascination in provincial kitsch, because, as Andrzej Osęka wrote: ‘Jerzy Duda Gracz paints in the conventions of old-fashioned hand-coloured wedding photograph and embroidered wall decoration (…) while maintaining a kind of aesthetic distance from the observed, captured conventions, inviting us to play a game with a gesture not devoid of coquetry.’¹³ Finally, he was seen as ‘a neo-traditionalist practising the art typical of the young generation, verging on cartoon’.¹⁴ The penetration of satirical elements into his painting and graphic works, tendencies to verism, and primacy of the timeliness of the message over formal research, were said to distinguish the art of the most interesting young graphic artists of that time, where Szymon Bojko, who had visited their studios, included Jerzy Duda-Gracz; he considered him a ‘knight’(!) of rejuvenated Polish satire, positioning him next to Andrzej Krauze, Andrzej Dudziński, Jan Sawka, and Antoni Chodorowski, with Andrzej Czeczot at the forefront.¹⁵ Duda-Gracz, perceived as ‘primarily a satirist by temperament’,¹⁶ played a significant role in the environment of young artists cooperating with both the Krakow magazine ‘Student’ and the much more prestigious ‘Szpilki’ (he was even the winner of the Silver and Golden Pin, awarded by the magazine, for his social and political drawings); among the admirers and promoters of his work was Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz, the editor-in-chief of ‘Szpilki’ in the 1960s and 1970s. Therefore, his work was received as the voice of a generation that Tadeusz Nyczek would mention years later: ‘At the turn of the 1970s appeared a whole formation of artists and writers who would similarly relate to reality. In 1974, Zagajewski and Kornhauser published the book Świat nie przedstawiony (The Unpresented World – transl.). They called for showing the world we live in as it really is, not as propaganda would like to see it. Through art, literature, and theatre, artists began to assert the realism of seeing the world, against the fiction imposed by the communists. Duda-Gracz was at the very centre of that current.’¹⁷ The phenomenon of the popularity of Jerzy Duda Gracz’s work did not escape the attention of the reviewers of his artistic achievements when he applied for the position of associate professor at the college. Jacek Gaj therefore explained the artist’s success with his courageous attitude; the ability to go beyond social and customary norms, good taste, forcing viewers to revise their simplified judgment about the world while exposing our tendencies to conformism and avoidance of difficult truths. Gaj saw Duda-Gracz as an heir of the ‘social mission’ current in Polish art, hence a continuator of Jan Matejko, Jacek Malczewski, and Bronisław Wojciech Linke whose attitude was to be the closest to his. Jerzy Nowosielski, on the other hand, did not hesitate to describe him as an ‘outstanding artist’, emphasising that ‘contact with a great artist is the most important issue in the process of initiation into painting during academic studies’.¹⁸ He also considered the authentic relationship between Duda-Gracz with tradition to be extremely useful for students, due to the educational nature of such an institution as the Academy, adding at the same time that the painter was not a conservative. Jerzy Nowosielski tried to effectively prove that Duda-Gracz’s paintings were not a ‘historical stylisation’ by conducting a brilliant analysis of the impact of Pieter Brueghel’s creation on the activities of the Katowice-based artist. He considered the following features to be common to both painters: ‘the affinity of vision and characteristics of the properties of objects; an ironic and fairy-tale-like attitude towards reality, tendencies to complicate anecdotes and inclination to metaphor’.¹⁹ At the same time, he aptly observed that the analysis of spatial structures was conditioned, in the case of Duda-Gracz, by the lesson of cubism, which the painter had diligently studied, and the painting matter is ‘fleshier, one would like to say more tangible, as if thicker’ (than in Brueghel). The critic also emphasised that, besides formal differences, there are ideological ones; the metaphors in Duda-Gracz’s art stemmed organically from contemporary times. Flattering opinions about his creative achievements, all the more valuable as dictated not only by courtesy but by the reliable assessment of professionals (the reviews being often an opportunity to square accounts between artists during the so-called ‘procedures’ (of professional qualification – transl.), undoubtedly reflected the atmosphere around Jerzy Duda-Gracz. In the 1970s, his paintings aroused vivid interest and a positive response among the then-renowned critics: Andrzej Osęka, Wojciech Skrodzki, Maciej Gutowski, and Nawojka Cieślińska. Towards the end of the decade, however, the first reviews indicating the weaknesses of the paintings of the Katowice-based artist began to appear. For Magdalena Hniedziewicz, the artist’s unquestionable skill did not serve anything but show, going hand in hand with the superficiality of the view, avoidance of a genuinely sharp and uncompromising assessment of the characters presented, the more comfortable as it was aimed at people from outside his world: ‘I can feel that these paintings talk about things that are supposedly close – as close a pompous official or a “merchant’s wife” loaded with trinkets can be to any of us – but not really close.’²⁰ Hniedziewicz was concerned about ‘the ease and repeatability of motifs and ideas (used, and probably even abused by the artist)’. Mirosław Ratajczak had similar dilemmas as Hniedziewicz; while acknowledging Duda-Gracz’s original ‘handschrift’, he expressed doubts regarding excess content overloading his works: ‘too many clothes. Clothes-props, allegory, convention.’²¹

Despite the critical voices, the balance of the 1970s was definitely positive for the artist; cracks in his image did not begin to appear until the following decade, in connection with his political choices. After the introduction of martial law, he broke away from the milieu’s boycott of exhibition institutions, showcasing his works at local BWA (Art Exhibition Bureau – transl.) galleries (Łódź 1983, Katowice 1984) and the CBWA Zachęta (retrospective in 1985), and accepting the authorities’ invitation to co­­-create a new Association of Polish Painters and Graphic Artists, created in place of the liquidated Association of Polish Artists and Designers (which was later to be revived). Not only did he exhibit in Poland but – horrorfully – in Moscow (at the Central House of the Artist in 1987), having also represented Poland at the Art Biennale in Venice three years earlier. While flattering opinions about his work still prevailed in the official press, critics who had gone underground, to the so-called second circulation, were much less indulgent. As Anda Rottenberg wrote in ‘Szkice’: ‘We don’t know whether Duda Gracz prays, that’s his business, we do know that he collaborates (with the authorities – transl.).’²² On the other hand, in the text prepared for the scientific session of the Association of Art Historians (unpublished, 1986), Rottenberg looked at the question of perception of his achievements from a broader perspective, asking rhetorically: ‘Has anything changed in Duda-Gracz’s and Dwurnik’s art since they were covered with their environment’s odium, but extolled by the authorities instead? For many of their former supporters, the current aversion to people also extended to these artists’ work. Just like in the story of a friendship – when the artist took his friend’s girlfriend, the other said turgidly: ‘You’ve betrayed art.’²³ In turn, in an interview given more than twenty years later, Rottenberg admitted that the situation in the artistic milieu of the time eluded categorical value judgments: ‘Duda Gracz suddenly became a regime artist, although he had earlier verged on the criticism of the system, in how and what he’d paint. He rose to the top and spread his wings (…) These were very difficult choices. (…) On the other hand, when a broad opposition movement arose, some artists tried to make a social climb in his company, and one wouldn’t say even hammered drunk that their works represented true artistic values.’²⁴ Therefore, attempts to defend Duda-Gracz against the allegations of collaboration appeared in the official press. Ryszard Marek Groński wrote in the columns of ‘Polityka’: ‘Well, that’s right – any dauber, anybody envious or talentless can call Duda Gracz a “collaborator” and get away with it. Therefore, those critics who suddenly got intrigued by sacred art have found it appropriate to keep silent about his work. Meanwhile, it was precisely the author of the paintings from 1968–1983, presented in “Zachęta” who also painted the Pietà of Limanowa, while they were busy with quite different subjects.’²⁵ Thus, Groński called out the critics originating from the left-wing, lay intelligentsia circles, who would once eagerly take advantage of the benefits of the communist system, to later become fascinated, in their neophyte-like enthusiasm, by works (of different artistic level) exhibited in church-owned venues. At the same time, Groński seemed to suggest that Duda-Gracz proved to be more honest compared to them, as he had never avoided religious topics (which can be confirmed by the plebeian Madonna and other works), without denying the fact of being a beneficiary of the Polish People’s Republic’s system of supporting artists. In addition, 1985 was the date of the premiere of a publication covering the entirety of Duda-Gracz’s artistic oeuvre, written by by Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz.²⁶ In turn, Jerzy Madeyski, in an extensive article devoted to Duda-Gracz, did not propose new interpretative clues for his art, but he quoted the Italian critics’ opinions (which had followed the artist’s participation in the Venice Biennale), to prove that his work did not have a particularist nature and was appreciated in the West.²⁷ Jerzy Madeyski, acting as the curator of the Polish pavilion in Venice throughout the 1980s, undoubtedly wanted to make his curatorial choices credible (in 1984, besides Duda-Gracz, Danuta Leszczyńska-Kluza, Andrzej Fogtt, and Bożenna Biskupska presented their works in the Polish pavilion); however, although he was trumpeted a ‘success’ in the national press, no international repercussions followed it. After many years, Joanna Sosnowska clear-headedly commented on the exhibition in the Polish pavilion: ‘The Polish exhibition in Venice, as well as its organisers and participants, were boycotted by the milieu which would not agree with the political scene of the time. However, it must be said that the pompous arrangement of the pavilion, referring to the national tradition, did not differ in its character from what would be shown at many independent exhibitions, especially in venues connected with church institutions (…) Thus, it was often not art, but only the political context that divided artists from both sides.’²⁸ Sosnowska summed up her considerations with an apt observation: ‘That was reflected in the situation that arose after 1989, when former regime artists, such as Duda Gracz and Franciszek Starowieyski, could be seen again among the artists supported by the new government.’²⁹ Therefore, the label of a ‘regime artist’ stuck to Duda-Gracz for good and, although it did not affect the perception of his person by the audience and the authorities, it did influence the opinion-forming criticism. However, the artist had reasons to feel satisfied, if only because of the number of texts devoted to him that had appeared in the press (approx. 250 in the 1980s). Often, in addition to a brief discussion of his work, those texts contained excerpts from commemorative books made available during exhibitions, where visitors would share the enthusiasm that his painting evoked in them. That resource was perhaps used by some critics to further validate flattering opinions about the painter, or might reflect their surprise at the phenomenon of Duda-Gracz’s popularity. Lastly, the artist, as one of the few creators of the Polish People’s Republic era, would appear in the youth and women’s press in the 1970s and 1980s. The trend continued in the following decade, in new lifestyle magazines, including ‘Twój Styl’ and ‘Playboy’, where his work became the subject of journalists’ analysis, without, however, gaining new interpretations.

In the 1990s, as I mentioned at the beginning, the critics turned their back on the artist, now relabeled an arte polo hero. Not only the young critics from ‘Raster’, but also Dorota Jarecka from ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ could not understand the phenomenon of its popularity, as they had no doubt that it was bad art. Jarecka observed with surprise: ‘His exhibition at the Silesian Museum attracted more people than the display of works of Jacek Malczewski which I had seen here previously’ (1996).³⁰ She emphasised that Duda Gracz’s art was based on stereotypes, and the paintings did not bring any discoveries, in terms of neither form nor colour. Even the caricatural capture of the character, so typical of Duda-Gracz, turned out to be ‘foulness, generously sprinkled with sugar, coated with caramel, easy to swallow’.³¹

Trying to sum up that subjective press review, taking into consideration only selected aspects of Jerzy Duda-Gracz’s work, we should perhaps ask ourseves what caused the turnabout towards the critical assessment of his output. To some extent, the answers can be found in two texts by contemporary critics: Jakub Banasiak and Stach Szabłowski. The former analysed Duda-Gracz’s work as a ‘function and symptom’ of cultural policy, first in Poland under Gierek’s lead, then in the martial law time, and finally in the ‘Third Republic of Poland’, emphasising the artist’s ability to come to an agreement with any authority. By doing that, Banasiak invalidated the myth of Duda-Gracz as a moralist and non-conformist, pointing out our national vices, to emphasise instead the selectivity of criticism towards him: ‘In the 1970s, he would sneer at the common folk, whom the middle class would deride to heal the complex of its own recent social advancement by criticising the lumpenproletariat. In the 1980s, he was the authorities’ favourite, and his canvases got filled with demonic priests leading the society, clumped in shapeless masses ; (…). After 1989, he belonged to the artistic elite: acknowledged by the critics and audience alike, respected in the parlours of those in power, on good terms with the Church, he became a symbolic figure of the Polish transformation.’³² Many of Banasiak’s pertinent theses are hard to dispute although, on the other hand, his view on the work of the Katowice-based artist seems to be overly one-dimensional. Szabłowski, in turm, rightly pointed out that the situation in which Polish art found itself – the intensive ‘attunement to the international art scene, establishing a connection with global or at least European markets and opinion-forming centres’³³ also contributed to Duda-Gracz’s post-1989 ‘falling out of grace’ with the critics. This market was much more favourable to the presentation of painting of the ‘Ładnie’ group (just discovered by the young critics from ‘Raster’), especially Wilhelm Sasnal, compared with the international star Luc Tuymans, than Jerzy Duda-Gracz, perceived as a follower of Malczewski or Wojtkiewicz. It would be also hard to omit the fact that every young generation of artists, entering the art market, has its own de Koonig drawing which must be – in their opinion – erased in an act of symbolic takeover of the art scene, or at least a significant regrouping of forces. Why was that attempt successful in the case of Duda-Gracz? Undoubtedly, there were no critics from his own generation, convinced that the artist deserved a defence. Andrzej Osęka, one of the most influential critics of the 1970s and 1980s, was considered, in the following decade, a ‘fossil from another era’,³⁴ as Jakub Banasiak wrote. Young critics from ‘Raster’ would comment contemptuously on his statements: ‘Osęka’s whinging again.’³⁵ Other journalists who had published texts about Duda-Gracz on a regular basis, such as Krzysztof Teodor Toeplitz and Jerzy Madeyski, were connected with press titles that ceased to appear in the 1990s; in addition, those journalists were exposed to embarrassment due to their collaboration with the communist authorities in the period following the introduction of the martial law. Similarly, Duda-Gracz’s attitude in that time (considered an expression of collaboration with General Jaruzelski’s régime) made his activity in the artistic milieu of the 1990s problematic for many of its participants. There is no doubt that the specific ‘exclusion’ of the artist was also contributed, to a certain degree, by the ‘overproduction’ of his paintings, caused by the enormous demand, leading to a decrease of creativity and the repetitiveness of formal and iconographic solutions applied. Therefore, let me repeat the question I asked at the beginning: what caused such a significant change of Duda-Gracz’s status in the eyes of the critics and the unfavourable assessment of his creative achievements? I will answer it in the same way: a combination of various factors: political, social, and artistic ones. However, I am convinced that the phenomenon of this artist deserves to be re-examined, for example in the context of the ‘topos of nativeness’, the social reception of his art or, lastly, the market position; the author of this article intends to address all these questions.