Nikifor Krynicki, LANDSCAPE WITH A SAINT

16.5 x 23.5 cm - watercolor, gouache, pencil, paper glued onto cardboard

inscription along the bottom edge: WSINIEBONASWIETYBOSKASEŁOPOLULE
On the reverse, top left (in pen): 8.; next to it (in pencil): IX;
below, a round seal with an inscription in the border: SOUVENIR FROM KRYNICA | NIKIFOR, ARTIST AND PAINTER, (in black watercolor): 1000 ZŁ.

Provenance: Private collection, Sweden,
purchased from a traveling exhibition in Sweden in 1966.
The painting was exhibited, mentioned, and reproduced, among others, in: – Traveling Exhibition 1966, Hägerstens Konstförening, Midsommargarden, September 5–28; Blackebergs Konstförening, Ängbykyrkan, October 1–9; Farsta Konstförening, Farsta Forum, November 5–13; Vantörs Konstförening, Högdalen, November 19–27, Spanga Konstförening, Spanga Församlingshus, December 3–10, Skarpnäcks Konstförening, ABF’s study center, Arsta Centrum, Arsta, cat. no. 80.
♣ Resale right: ♣ A fee will be added to the Purchase Price pursuant to the right of the artist and his heirs to receive compensation in accordance with the Act of February 4, 1994, on Copyright and Related Rights (droit de suite).

Nikifor (born Epifaniusz Drowniak; Nikifor Krynicki from 1962; Krynica ca. 1895 – Krynica 1968) — Łemek, a well-known self-taught naive painter from Krynica. He suffered from hearing and speech impairments; he never attended school and could neither read nor write. Painting was his true passion and his means of communicating with the world. He began painting at an early age—the artist’s earliest known works date back to before 1920. He painted in watercolor, also using a pencil. He made use of every available scrap of paper, including notebook covers and cigarette packs. He created entire series of pictures—touchingly naive depictions of architecture, landscapes, saints, and portraits. He often signed his works with incomprehensible strings of “printed” letters and pasted frames made of colored paper around them. His work had already attracted attention in the 1930s (among the Kapists), but Nikifor’s true discovery as an artist did not occur until after the war, when he was taken under the wing of the art community and admitted to the Association of Polish Fine Artists (ZPAP). In 1962, he was given the surname Krynicki. Convinced of the importance of his art, he also used the nickname Matejko.