Zdzisław Nitka

Zdzisław Nitka (b. 26 January 1962 in Oborniki Śląskie) is a neo-expressionist painter, draughtsman and graphic artist, a representative of the generation of the 1980s and of the circle of the „New Savages”. His fascination with Expressionism was born already in the days of the Secondary School of Fine Arts in Wrocław; in 1982 he began his studies at the local State Higher School of Fine Arts (today the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts), where in 1987 he defended his diploma in the painting studio of Professor Józef Hałas. Since 1988 he has taught at his alma mater, now with the title of professor.

Nitka made his debut in 1986 at the famous exhibition „Expression of the 1980s” at the BWA in Sopot - a manifestation of a whole generation of the Polish New Expression. In his painting he consciously refers to early German Expressionism and the Neue Wilde movement, almost literally quoting the masters - van Gogh, Munch, Kirchner, Nolde, Baselitz and Polke - in order then to rework and enrich them with his own reflection; an important motif is „the painter carried on the shoulders of a painter”. In the 1980s he corresponded with Georg Baselitz, who dedicated to him a work on paper, „Maler Nitka”.

Nitka's work is austere and uncompromising, filled with the psychology and poetics of dread; alongside people, animals appear in it, most often dogs, and around 2003 a separate current of dark „cut paintings” made with a chainsaw came into being. The artist consciously gives up technical perfection, declaring: „like the Rolling Stones, I am suited to the role of an outsider and a rebel”. In 1997, together with his wife Jolanta Nitka-Nikt, he founded the private Museum of the Expressionists in Oborniki Śląskie. His works are held, among others, in the collection of the National Museum in Wrocław.