Adam Stalony-Dobrzański. Master of the Rozwadów parish
15.09. – 13.10. 2013
Curator: Jan Pawlicki
Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola, 1 Sandomierska St.
We can admire the beauty of colorful stained glass windows in all their glory only when the sun’s rays penetrate them. It seems obvious to us, but when we have direct contact with them we are always seduced by their charm. The charm of images that are a composition of glass, lead and light. The secrets of the proper artistic language for the creation of modern stained glass windows were undoubtedly learned by Adam Stalony-Dobrzański (1904-1985).
The artist’s stained glass windows adorn dozens of churches, Orthodox churches and even an Evangelical church. They represent a great achievement of the Cracow School of Stained Glass, which has its roots in the art of the Young Poland era – the compositions of Stanislaw Wyspianski and Jozef Mehoffer. The artist also refers to the extraordinarily rich tradition of Byzantine Eastern and Orthodox church art, which has been close to his heart since his childhood and early youth spent in Ukraine, as well as Romanesque and Gothic art. He owes his mastery to his extremely skillful use of lead lines, with which he brilliantly portrays the emotions and spirituality of the figures he depicts, as well as his use of hard, cubist geometry and drawing on the experience of modern abstraction. Attention is also drawn to the lettering incorporated into each of the artist’s paintings, which is closely connected with the iconographic content, making it easier to understand. The artist also included a great deal of theological erudition in his works. The lettering in Stalony-Dobrzanski’s works also has a plastic function by enclosing and dividing the plane of the stained glass windows. Among his extremely prolific output, the artist’s best-known works can be admired in the Orthodox church in Grodek Białostocki, churches in Rozwadów and Zawiercie, and the Gothic cathedral in Nysa, among others.
The exhibition consists primarily of multimedia constructions aimed at recreating the artist’s most famous and expressive stained-glass installations. The main element that brings the reconstructions to life and makes them credible is the light coming out from the center of the cuboid installations, thanks to which the viewer has the opportunity to experience identical aesthetic sensations and emotions, as if he or she were communing directly with the paintings in church and church windows.
The exhibition, so far, has been shown in several places in Ukraine (where many of the artist’s works also remain). The Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola will additionally present for the first time the artist’s original color stained glass designs on paper, on loan courtesy of the exhibition curator. There will also be a unique opportunity to see more than a dozen exquisite sketches for the stained glass window of Our Lady of Fatima in Rozwadowska Parish Church. The presented projects are only a small part of the artist’s vast oeuvre, which is still waiting to be developed and properly presented to the public. The curator of the exhibition, and at the same time a researcher of the artist’s work, is his grandson, Jan Pawlicki (who also often signs himself as Jan Stalony-Dobrzański).
The exhibition is accompanied by films about the artist and a catalog of the stained-glass windows of the Rozwadów parish.
Coordination and additional information: Anna Szlazak aszlazak@muzeum.stalowawola.pl, 15 8448556 w.15
