Marcin Maciejowski

The Polish painter Marcin Maciejowski, born in 1974, first gained international recognition as part of Grupa Ładnie (Pretty Group), alongside students from the Krakow University of Technology. Rooted in the present, he is interested in the customs, values and culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. He draws on newspapers, television and advertising, as well as his own photographs, to inform his images; the scenes he selects range from the alluring to the everyday. These found images are transposed into a pictorial language that reflects his experience in graphic arts. The combination of a comic-book aesthetic and the meticulous realism of Old Master painting provides the framework for an enigmatic social commentary. Personal scenes sit alongside subjects of public significance, without the works settling into an explicit narrative. Maciejowski sometimes brings political rhetoric into dialogue with the clichés of art criticism, thereby questioning the place of contemporary art in society.

His work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the National Museum in Krakow and the Ostdeutsche Galerie in Regensburg in 2010, followed by an exhibition at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead in 2013. His works were also presented at the Państwowa Galeria Sztuki in Sopot in 2019, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow in 2020 and the Belvedere in Vienna in 2024. They are held in collections in Vienna, including the Belvedere and the Volpinum Kunstsammlung, as well as the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, MOCAK in Krakow and the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. The work Wypoczynek is reproduced in the book Marcin Maciejowski – I Wanna Talk to You, published in Cologne in 2007. Its published provenance lists Meyer Kainer gallery in Vienna, followed by a Swiss private collection; it was sold at auction for CHF 18,000, excluding fees.

Works recorded at auction

Germann

Wypoczynek (Freizeit), 2004

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Wypoczynek (Freizeit), 2004
Öl auf Leinwand.

Date to be documented

Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed

View the lot at the auction house ↗