Nikifor Krynicki

«Cityscape», pencil on paper, 15 × 20 cm.

This pencil drawing, like Nikifor Krynicki's oeuvre as a whole, is more than a cityscape or portrait: it is a testament to his inner, ideal world, in which the real churches and small houses of Krynica merge forever with the majestic skyscrapers of his imagination. The apparent childlike naivety of the line and the deliberately simplified forms contain a surprising harmony, while the unexpected perspectives and vivid patches of colour characteristic of the master's work lend it the decorative power that has led his art to be compared with the finest examples of primitivism worldwide. These works are like the diary of an orphaned artist, almost without speech, who nevertheless succeeded in communicating his vision of beauty to the world through the unique, moving and sincere language of naive art.

Nikifor Krynicki, whose real name was Epifanij Drowniak, was born in Krynica in 1895, the illegitimate son of a deaf-mute farm labourer. Partially deaf from birth and affected by severe speech difficulties, he lived in extreme poverty, earning a living by making drawings on small scraps of paper. It was precisely these physical and social limitations that shaped his unique artistic language: spontaneous, bold and entirely free from any academic convention.

His talent was discovered in the 1930s by the painter Roman Turyn, who organised exhibitions in Paris and Lviv. After the Second World War, Nikifor achieved international recognition as one of the foremost naive artists of the 20th century; his cityscapes and architectural fantasies, naive in appearance yet extraordinarily accomplished, continue to astonish through their profound inner harmony.

It was not until 1962 that he officially obtained an identity and identity papers. He died in 1968, leaving an extensive body of work now held in museums in Poland and Ukraine.