Wood-carving
Painting
Commercial graphics
Cartoon film
Caricature
Stanislaw Raczynski studied
painting at the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts in Poland, in 1920s.
Before World War II his artistic interest focused on graphics and,
in particular, wood-cutting, lithography and similar techniques.
His early works were influenced mainly by the modernistic style in
painting and wood-carving. His admiration for Salvador Dali was
notable, though he did not follow the surrealistic style in
graphical art. Among more classical authors, he was en enthusiast
of El Greco and Albrecht Durer. He was also influenced by Polish
groups of artists like Skoczylas and Pronaszko. Between late 20s
and 1939 he was a successful young artist with great expectations.
He married Bronislawa Gawin, a girl from an old Krakow family, who
went on to become his great partner and supporter in all his life.
The World War II dramatically interrupted his career. Stanislaw
Raczynski had to forget earlier plans and work hard to survive and
maintain his wife and son Stanislaw, born one year before the war.
After the war, in the obscure period of communistic
oppression, his situation was nearly the same as during the nazi
invasion. He never accepted any kind of collaboration with the
regime, refusing permanently to practice the style of "socialistic
realism" nearly obligatory for those artists who wanted to
survive. His situation was bad not only for his lack of
collaboration with the communists. The family name "Raczynski"
had always been associated with the name of a known Polish family
of counts. This implicated severe problems in the period of
Stalinism. Being ignored by the official media and manipulated
critics, he worked as an actor in a moppet theater and edited
books for children, with his own poetry and illustrations. One of
his children stories almost costed him some years in prison. It
was a story about a "big bad man", who was destroying
everything around him, mainly the children toys. It probably was
not the author's intention, but someone from the censors or
communistic authorities found a similarity between the "bad
man" and Josef Stalin. Despite of all these problems, he had
never stopped to create great wood-cuttings and drawings.
The
most known works of Stanislaw Raczynski from the post-war period
include the cycle of 8 wood-cuts entitled "Krakow" and
the cycle "Architecture of Ancient Polish Towns". He
also dedicated a nice cycle of wood-cuts to Polish traditions and
farmers. In 1960s he experimented with more contemporary abstract
forms.
Stanislaw Raczynski was an expert in romantic music and
a good pianist. His repertoire included works of Chopin, Debussy,
Mendelson, Albeniz, as well as Scarlatti, Mozart and Beethoven.
His sense of humor was well known among his friends. He was also
an enthusiast of fishing and motor-cycles. He always had some of
those wonderful old machines, maintained and repaired by
himself.
The works of Stanislaw Raczynski are not easily
available. Many of his early works have been destroyed during the
war. Some isolated examples of his wood-cuttings still circulate
in art shops in Krakow, Poland.
Stanislaw Raczynski, Jr.,
October 1999
Contact:
http://www.raczynski.com/jazz/blues.htm (a new musical page of Stanislaw Raczynski jr.)
see also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFVjJsP562Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Cc_Y_ozvE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yde4y6Z1TCw
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Stanislaw
Raczynski gallery : wood-carving
AllArtOnLine
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