Wilhelm Sasnal

Wilhelm Sasnal (b. 29 December 1972 in Tarnów) is a painter, draughtsman, filmmaker and comics author - one of the most recognisable and highly regarded Polish artists of his generation. In 1992-1994 he studied architecture at the Kraków University of Technology, and in 1994-1999 painting at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts (diploma in the studio of Professor Leszek Misiak). In 1996 he co-founded the Grupa Ładnie (with Rafał Bujnowski, Marcin Maciejowski, Marek Firek and Józef Tomczyk), whose painting was described as „pop-banalism” - depictions of single motifs from the nearest iconosphere: everyday objects, advertisements, newspapers, television.

After 2001 Sasnal moves away from his fascination with the everyday towards the themes of collective historical memory, including the Holocaust - among other things through a dialogue with Art Spiegelman's famous comic „Maus” - laying on a thick layer of dense paint and blurring the motifs. His work co-creates the current of painting initiated by Gerhard Richter and Andy Warhol, based on the iconography of media images - photography, film, comics and advertising - in which the depicted world is seen through the prism of single events from the artist's biography and of „shared history”.

In 2006 Sasnal received the prestigious Vincent van Gogh Award given by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and took first place in the „Flash Art” magazine ranking of the best young artists in the world; earlier he had won the Grand Prix of the „Bielska Jesień” Biennale (1999). Associated with the Foksal Gallery Foundation and the Raster Gallery, he collaborated with the Anton Kern gallery in New York, Sadie Coles and Johnen, and his works are in the most important collections in the world - including MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Centre Pompidou. He also makes films (often with his wife Anka Sasnal) and is involved in the activities of Krytyka Polityczna and the „Never Again” Association.