Pan

Andrzej Bielawski

Polish printmaker Andrzej Bielawski uses a combination of intaglio methods, including aquatint, engraving and soft-ground etching to create this mysterious image of the Greek god, "Pan". In the late 1970s, when this print was done, he was a member of the group "Smietanka - Cream of the Crop", and did a series of works he called the "Solidarity" images.

Bielawski's work has been described by author Karol Sienkiewicz thusly: "...in his ground and in his mud you could see remains ...., delicate and stylish like in Japanese prints, the esthetics towering over reality, a reality before which people were powerless...." The face of Pan is barely visible, peeking through the foliage that dominates the composition. Is he peering up from the earth or through a hedge? He is in his realm.

Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens, and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring.

Andrzej Bielawski, a graphic artist, draughtsman, painter and photographer was born on January 31, 1949 in Mi?osna near Warsaw, Poland.

He began his studies in 1967 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and graduated in 1973 after receiving a diploma in Graphic Arts from Professor Andrzej Rudzi?ski's atelier. Between 1982-1983, he worked as an assistant in the painting department at the school. Throughout the eighties he cooperated with the underground "Solidarity" movement, producing a number of graphic art works and prints. Since 1991, together with his wife, Teresa Starzec, Bielawski runs the "Fundacja Atelier" in Warsaw, a city where he works and lives till today.

As a student, "he befriended artists Andrzej Bie?kowski, Tomasz Ciecierski, Ewa Kuryluk and Jan Dobkowski, with whom in the seventies, he formed an informal artistic group called "?mietanka" / "Cream of the crop" - the name taken from a joint exhibition at MDM gallery in Warsaw (1977). During his 'Martial Law' period, in his ground and in his mud you could see remains from tear gas flares, the insignia of "Solidarity", and barbwire - delicate and stylish like in japanese prints, the esthetics towering over reality, a reality before which people were powerless...."[Karol Sienkiewicz, December 2007.]