Stanislaw Cukier, Ecce Homo
Patinated bronze
Work signed, UNIQUE.
Dimensions: 68 x 45 cm
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Stanislaw Cukier is - as Jacek Waltos wrote - "a sculptor who works without declarations, without a word of introduction before the sculpture is created but also without a comment afterwards. Strange today, but not in the past. However, it is not old-fashionedness that characterizes Stanislaw Cukr, but good taste and a sense of the appropriateness of the means he uses. For his predilection for deriving form from modeling as if by the oldest intention, the deepest tradition according to which the layering of clay or wax had the power to revitalize the spirit in plasmatic matter (...) does not agree with verbal declarations. (...) Criteria appear, so strange that they are so forgotten: skill, accuracy, vividness of emotion and shape."
Born in Zakopane, he graduated with honors from Warsaw's Academy of Fine Arts, where he worked as a lecturer in the 1980s. However, he returned to his hometown. He continued his teaching mission, taking up the position of director at the Antoni Kenar Art School Complex in Zakopane, where he lives and works to this day.
About his craft, the artist says this: "Thanks to the technique of casting in bronze on lost wax, I was able to stop a moment, a thought, something fleeting, difficult to stop. Sculpture is space, it's space-time, it's shape, form and, above all, the arrangement of light.... You could say that casting in bronze or forging in stone is a material trace of man on Earth."
His works are exhibited all over the country and are in the collections of the National Museum in Wroclaw, the National Museum in Cracow, the National Museum in Warsaw and the British Museum in London, among others. The artist also participates in numerous group exhibitions of sculpture and medals at home and abroad. He has participated in FIDEM (Fédération Internationale de la Médaille d'Art) congresses - Florence, Italy, USA, Helsinki, Finland, Budapest, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, France, Portugal, United Kingdom.
The principals of Stanislaw Cukier's work were beautifully named by Professor Jerzy Stelmach: "[Cukier] remarkably combines metaphysical elements and his understanding of the sacred with a special ability to simplify the subject. (...) Distancing myself somewhat from classifications and divisions, I could say of Cukier that he is a sculptor of the classical (mainstream) of Polish sculpture (...) he is a sculptor "in a miraculously non-modern way". He knows what he is doing - he simply knows how to sculpt, he has his own workshop and technique. He doesn't need to shock and organize happenings, moreover, he certainly couldn't do it. He does his job decently: extraordinary works that, although so diverse, always remain recognizable - on the one hand thanks to the special presence of God in them, on the other, through the unique "Sugar Form." (...) The object of his interest is man, or to be more precise: God and Man. The search for a universal language makes sense precisely because it allows him to explore the mystery and capture the essence of humanity. Sugar believes in God, and this, in his opinion, already sets everything in the right place and in the right proportion, both in life and in art."
A few words about the artist were also written by Bronislaw Christopher: Simple means of expression. Cukr's original attitude, with no concessions to the world he creates in his sculptures He takes up themes and problems without fireworks, but when sculpting he transforms them into forms full of expression and plastic sensitivity.He refines the resulting sculptures with a "living" patina, which adds new light and atmosphere. The artist's works are a rare and unique quality in contrast to fashions and common imitation in the field of art.
