Modjeska Art & Culture Club: February 2023

15th-19th -Century Icons & the Work of Zdzisław Beksiński

in the Collections of the Historical Museum in Sanok

Lecture by Katarzyna Winnicka of Sanok, Poland

Saturday March 4, 2023 at 4:30 PM,

Bolton Hall Museum, 10110 Commerce Ave, Tujunga, Los Angeles, CA 91042

Helena Modjeska Art & Culture Club presents a lecture by Katarzyna Winnicka from Sanok Historical Museum in Poland. It is a presentation of the most important examples of icons, which are part of one of the largest and most beautiful collections of Orthodox church art in Poland and all of Europe. Icons are sacred paintings (Marian, Christological or Hagiographic), painted on wood boards, and collected from former Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches in south-east Poland. The second part of the presentation will cover the work of Zdzisław Beksiński (1929-2005) - one of the most famous contemporary artists. In his paintings, one can see the features of visionary Romantic and surreal painting, or inspirations by Eastern mysticism. In 2001, Beksiński bequeathed his entire artistic output to the Historical Museum in Sanok, to which he donated about 300 works during his lifetime. Currently, the Museum has the largest collection of the artist's works, including several thousand paintings, reliefs, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs. Free admission. RSVP prezes@modjeska.org.

Free admission. RSVP prezes@modjeska.org. After the lecture, we invite you to a reception with appetizers and desserts.

Curator Katarzyna Winnicka, our lecturer, holds a Master's of Art History degree, with studies completed at the Catholic University of Lublin. She serves as the Curator in the Department of Orthodox Art at the Historical Museum in Sanok. As part of this function, she organized numerous temporary exhibitions, publications, museum lessons, museum workshops, catalogs of collections, and others. Curator Winnicka also conducted classes at the State Higher Vocational School in Sanok at the Faculty of Cultural Studies - classes in iconography and church art.

Mrs. Winnicka's visit to California is a project organized jointly with Jerzy Barankiewicz from the Polish Art Salon in San Diego, where the Curator will give a lecture next Saturday, March 11, 2023. In Los Angeles, the guest will be hosted by Dr. Maja Trochimczyk, President of the Club, organizing trips to the Huntington Library and the Getty Center.\

Zdzisław Beksiński (born February 24, 1929 in Sanok, died February 21, 2005 in Warsaw) - is a Polish engineer, architect, painter, sculptor, photographer, draftsman and fantasy artist who also uses computer graphics. In 2001, Beksiński bequeathed his entire artistic output to the Historical Museum in Sanok, to which he bequeathed about 300 of his works during his lifetime. After the artist's death, the Museum received about 20 of his last paintings, about 1,000 photographs and graphics, as well as all his property - apartments, bank deposits, computer equipment. The museum's collections have also been enriched with multimedia records, letters and films documenting the artist's family life. The museum currently has the largest collection of the artist's works, including several thousand paintings, reliefs, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs.

Photographs of Beksinksi's paintings: Dariusz Szuwalski, Historical Museum in Sanok. The works are on permanent display in the Zdzisław Beksiński Gallery in the Historical Museum in Sanok.

SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCE BY ALEXANDER RYBAK

In his special guest appearance, Belarussian-Norwegian violinist Alexander Rybak will play a violin solo piece that he composed and selected specially for this event.

Alexander Rybak, or, in Belarussian, Alyaxandr Iharavich Rybak (Belarusian: Аляксандр Ігаравіч Рыбак; born 13 May 1986) is a Belarusian-Norwegian singer-composer, violinist, pianist and actor. Based in Oslo, Rybak extensively worked on television programs and on tours in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe throughout the early 2010s. Performing in English, Russian and Norwegian, Rybak held on to a teen idol status in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and to a certain extent in Western Asia in his early twenties. His debut 2009 album, Fairytales, charted in the top 20 in nine European countries, including a top position in Norway and Russia. After two pop albums in Fairytales and No Boundaries (2010), Rybak switched to become a family-oriented artist, focusing on children's and classical music and frequently performing with youth orchestras throughout the world.

Rybak is known for his extensive involvement in the Eurovision Song Contest. Representing Norway in the 2009 contest in Moscow, Russia, he won the competition with 387 points—the highest tally any country has achieved in the history of Eurovision under the then-voting system—with "Fairytale", a song he wrote and composed. Winning at the age of 23, Rybak remains the youngest solo male winner of the contest and the only Belarusian-born winner to date. Since then, Rybak has been involved several times in the contest. He represented Norway again in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, with the song "That's How You Write a Song", winning the second semi-final and finishing in 15th place in the final. He performed for Eurovision also in 2010, 2012 and 2016.

A son of a classical violinist Igor Rybak and a pianist, Irina, Rybak received a Bachelor’s degree in violin performance in 2012 from the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo, Norway. He then studied film music at Columbia College in Chicago and graduated with an MFA in 2022; his new focus is film music. He does not neglect his violinist's roots: in 2022, he performed in Sweden and Norway on a 62-concert tour.