Nikifor Krynicki, PORTRET

15,6 x 10,0cm - pencil, crayon, paper

author's inscription along the bottom edge (in pencil): NORACA VILLAGE PANEA

On the reverse a central round stamp with a depiction of Nikifor the Bishop and an inscription in the rim: PAMIĄTKA Z KRYNICY * NIKIFOR MALARIST *; below (in pencil): 200 ZŁ; also, at the top, framing notes

♣ a fee will be added to the auctioned price in addition to other costs, based on the right of the artist and his heirs to receive remuneration in accordance with the Law of February 4, 1994 - on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Nikifor (actually Epifaniusz Drowniak, from 1962 Nikifor Krynicki; Krynica ca. 1895 - Krynica 1968) - Lemko, well-known naive painter from Krynica, self-taught. He suffered from hearing and speech disorders, never studied in any school, could not write or read. His true passion and way to communicate with the world was painting. He started painting at an early age - his earliest known works date back to before 1920. He painted in watercolor, using pencil as well. He used every available piece of paper, notebook covers, cigarette packs. He created whole series of pictures - touchingly naive depictions of architecture, landscape, saints' figures, portraits. He often signed his works with incomprehensible strings of "printed" letters and pasted frames of colored paper to them. His work received attention as early as the 1930s (the Capists), but the real discovery of Nikifor's phenomenon came only after the war, when he was cared for and admitted to the ZPAP. In 1962 he was given the name Krynicki. Convinced of the importance of his art, he also used the nickname Matejko.