Andrzej Gieraga

Andrzej Gieraga (b. 1934 in the village of Śliwniki) is a painter and graphic artist, a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź - a respected classic of Polish geometric abstraction. He completed his studies at the State Higher School of Fine Arts in Łódź (today the Academy of Fine Arts), defending in 1971 his diploma with distinction in the painting studio of Professor Roman Modzelewski and the design studio of Professors Antoni Starczewski and Aniela Bogusławska. He linked his teaching career with his alma mater - until 2005 he was its lecturer and full professor, and in 1990-2005 vice-rector; later he headed the Chair of Painting and Drawing at the Radom University of Technology.

Gieraga's work is marked by a mood of calm and harmony, arising from an individual approach to form and a great sensitivity to light and colour. His hallmark is the relief: in order to bring out all kinds of action of light he uses relief protrusions and recesses, the intensifying and fading of shades of grey, the glow of white and the illusory effects of colours growing incandescent, close to the phenomenon of fluorescence. His path is a creative metamorphosis - from the first, expression-seething, black-and-white reliefs of the 1970s (which brought him the recognition of the milieu and numerous awards) to the extraordinarily subtle, calm-emanating, most recent white paintings.

Gieraga took part in many events that were breakthroughs for Polish art - the exhibitions and symposia of „Złote Grono” in Zielona Góra, the meetings in Osieki and the International Plein-airs for Artists Using the Language of Geometry in Okuninka and Radziejowice. He is the originator and long-time curator of the Władysław Strzemiński Competition for students of the Łódź Academy of Fine Arts (since 1983), and also the author of mural realisations, including the supraportes in the Golden Hall of the Museum of the City of Łódź. On his initiative permanent galleries were created in Łódź hospitals and an open-air sculpture garden.

The artist has realised over 70 solo exhibitions and taken part in over 300 group exhibitions in Poland and abroad - including in San Francisco, Paris, Naples and Cologne. Repeatedly awarded, he received among others the main prize at the Festival of Contemporary Polish Painting in Szczecin (1972), the Grand Prix of „Złote Grono” in Zielona Góra (1979) and the Italian medal Premio Internazionale Apollo Musagete (1985). Consistent and faithful to the language of geometry, Gieraga is one of the most important continuators of the Łódź Constructivist tradition.