The artistic work of Krzysztof Witold Skorczewski—the young and unusually talented Cracovian graphic artist, has developed in an unconventional manner, and has left its mark along the path of his unusual artistic career. He commenced upon his independent artistic activities over ten years ago while still a student at the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Over a year before taking his diploma—from about 1970, Skorczewski, while obviously influenced by the works of Wojtowicz, Panek and Lutomski, produced the first examples of his individual style—a graphic art expressed in the fine line of linoleum prints. The wavy rhythm of the incisions, the contrasting of black patches with the active white surface of paper, a particular vibrating of surfaces enacted with the help of lines, ond attained through a varied width of cuts and disquieting junctures of lines; this unusually straightforward display of simple means of expression went to make up Skorczewski's fisrst very own etchings in the years 1970—71 ("Associations", "Homographics").

Superficially, Skorczewski etchings of this period might bring to mind the plasler engravings of Otreba, but they are made up of completely different graphic matter, and have closer associations with the human figure. The soft and pure lines and patches characteristic of linoleum prints, accumulate and intertwine, toking on anthropomorphic shape, and yet at the same time seem to be more o general summing up of certain troits of human existence, than the characterization of given events or persons. The simplicity of means of expression produces a richness, ard the delicate subtleties of line find their complex verificaticn in pictures. It seemed obvious at the time, that the young artist had become fully mature artistically, having discarded the whole ballast of form and meaning, that confronted him in the field of art. He attained independence, and the chance for a free and undoubtedly modern means of expression. Immediately after his diploma in 1971, having evolved from the cycle "Associations", Skorczewski produced a whole cycle of linoleum prints, wherein the deliniations are brought to an almost secessionist decorativeness. Certain human characteristics are generalized in a series of allegorical portraits, which refer rather to certain traits of character, than to particulor persons. And so we see an indifferent torso giving rise to a head with the ears of a donkey or a hare; a series of portraits without faces, which are sometimes expressive of birds of prey and dashing cocks, and sometimes completely bereft of expression. The towering growth and accumulation of flowing lines of varied thickness and intensity goes to make up uncommonly uniform engravings, which are almost abstract, and yet carry distinct literary associations. Further events were quick to follow. In 1972, Skorczewski received 2nd prize at the Cracow Biennale of Graphic Art, and other awards at home and abroad. It seemed that Skdrczewski's art was heading along the already attained lines of perfection, the building of graphic structures oscillating between a tendency for portrayal and fiqurativeness, and abstroct semantic experimentation. Meanwhile, success seems to have brought on second thoughts, ond in the following two years Skdrczewski cut down on exhibitions, and his work became more concentrated, as if centred on technique on the one hand, and the anatomy of success on the other.

In 1976, we find Skorczewski continuing his graphic studies in the workshop of Nil Stenquist at the Stockhotm Royal School of Art. The work from this period is full of surprises, as I think it must have been for Skorczewski himself in his first contact with the completely new matter of copperplate engravnig. First there was the dry-point: "Sheaf of Corn" taking on anthropomorphic semblance, and then dozens of practice attempts—first at strippling, and then etching. The new technique seems to have absorbed Skdrczawski's whole artistic activity. From 1977—78, he etched five medium-sized works from the series "Nemesis", which display a fully developed and mature etching technique. And it turned out that this new technique dictates an almost new and somehow different and less generalized treatment of graphic presentation. There appeared extended anecdotes permeated with specific metaphor, ond marked by the author's particular predilection for symbolic presentation. Wcmen became the central theme: women on enfuriated horses; women growing into the ground; rising out of the waves; with and without children; and organically growing into the chitinous armour of the tortoise. Women as sex; women as symbols; women as allegories—allegories of passing time. The next cycle—"Changes", was similar. A symbolic presentation of the seasons, the seasons of human life, the testing vehicles of human accomplishment. For two consecutive years (1979—80), the artist wos preoccupied with nine medium-sized etchings of incredible perfection, which seemingly departed from the mature graphic forms attained some years previously. On outword appeorance, they seemed completely different works of art, os if the product of a different artist. However, closer anolysis of the lines shows an incredible affinity between the formal technique of eight years Q90, and the present-day copperplates. A regrading has simply taken place, and an overpowering need for testing oneself. A need for expressing one's attitude towards reality through a manifestation of technique itself, through a return to more classical forms, and through a keener studying of one's own sensitivity and understanding of the world.

Therefore, what Krzysztof Skorczewski is doing today is, in a sense, a consideration of his own condition as man and creator-creator who has attained artistic succes, and the condition of man in general. The artistic poth of Skorczewski is also an intriguing and true parable of the situation of contemporary art. And although some people may seek signs of regress in it, I foresee a full blossoming.

translated from the Polish by Boguslaw ROSTWOROWSKI

February 1980