Anna Król PhD (dr hab.), Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts
Faculty of Painting
Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków
Senior Certified Curator, Curator
Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków
RECOMMENDATION
for the project ‘Rediscovering the Work of Eugeniusz Sawczyn’
In the summer of 2025, a group of friends and close associates of Eugeniusz Sawczyn (1956–1998) came up with the idea to preserve his work – in sculpture, medal-making and drawing – and to create a catalogue raisonné, that is, this unique form of documentation of an artist’s works, which will not only preserve his memory but, above all, promote his work, making his art alive and inspiring. That is why this initiative deserves our recognition (which goes without saying) and indeed our unconditional support.
Although Eugeniusz Sawczyn died prematurely, and his life was marked by illness and death, his art is astonishingly contemporary, as if it had been created in the 2020s. As if it were visualising and making a diagnosis today, for it speaks, after all, of acute loneliness, transience, otherness and human helplessness. His small three-dimensional sculptures and reliefs, perfectly executed, with a distinctive form requiring extraordinary sensitivity and awareness, illustrate this state. I firmly believe that art of this kind possesses great transformative power, for it compels us to reflect, simply to think.
His life was linked to three places: Jarosław (where he attended the School of Fine Arts), Warsaw (where he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts and worked as a lecturer) and Toronto, the final place he called home. It was in Canada that he created his stunning drawings of spaces and places sensed intuitively, belonging to another reality. And that is surely why his art is as important to Poland as it is to Canada; it constitutes a shared heritage. The promotion and preservation of this cultural heritage is our duty and responsibility – as citizens and as a nation. Only in this way will Eugeniusz Sawczyn’s artistic oeuvre continue to inspire and educate us, and become a part of us.
I recommend this vital project with a firm belief in its importance and necessity.
