Jan Dobkowski, “Mermaids”, “Flea”, “Owl” and “Mouse”, 1963, linocuts, 25 x 19 cm each

The four linocuts by Jan Dobkowski (b. 1942) in the Galeria Studio Collection were created during the artist’s student period, and thus before he developed the rich abstract visual language for which he is best known today. They were originally intended to illustrate “The Bestiary, or Procession of Orpheus,” a volume of poetry by French writer and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, but the project never came to fruition.

Drawing on the idea, initiated by Dorota Jarecka in 2016, of rereading works from the Collection in new contexts, Dobkowski’s works were shown in the exhibition “Butterfly Resistance: Haiti” (2024). There they were confronted with the graphic work of Haitian artist Paul Lionel, full of the imagery and symbolism of vodou. In this context, the tension present in Dobkowski’s four linocuts, between the simple representation of what the artist considers mundane (Flea) and the more detailed and almost fetishizing images of the exotic (the feathers in Mouse) and the fantastic (Mermaids), was highlighted.

The Galeria Studio Collection also contains the artist’s paintings, including Sin (1970) and My Ship – My Phantom (1989).

Maria Prokesz